Bitcoin strives for maximums but finds itself in the shadow of altcoins

Over the week, the total crypto capitalization spiked by $82 billion to $545 billion. Such an impressive growth in capitalization is associated with the increase in the value of digital currencies, as well as the emergence of new buyers in the crypto market. The Bitcoin dominance index declined by 1.6% over the week, as the demand from altcoin buyers was even higher than in Bitcoin.

Bitcoin has almost reached its historical maximum, so retail investors can pay particular attention to alternative cryptocurrencies, which by historical standards are quite far from their price highs. Although the most famous and largest by capitalization altcoin Ethereum (ETH) rose by 28% over the week, approaching $600, this is still very far from its max at $1,400 in mid-January 2018. In most cases, these are the levels retail investors will focus on.

Unexpectedly, the brightest among altcoins was the XRP token. The coin soared 70% during the week, with the main stage of growth taking place during the last few days. The coin had a very difficult last few years but especially deeply oversold conditions eventually played into XRP hands. XRP is still far from the maximum price level (around $4) even after the recent spike. In addition, there is speculation that such aggressive growth may be associated with the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency bill, which will prohibit banks from blacklisting competing legal industries, which could include Ripple business. This aims to accelerate and reduce the cost of bank money transfers while having all the necessary licenses.

Another altcoin with large growth is Waves. Against the backdrop of renewed demand for altcoins, trading, and digital currency exchange, the Waves platform, which has long operated as a mobile application and allows you to concentrate all crypto activity around a wide range of available instruments, can receive a significant increase in demand. The Waves token has grown in price over the past week by 61% to $8.12, outperforming Zcash (ZEC) and even DeFi token yearn.finance (YFI), which has recently attracted wide attention. The historic high of Waves is $17, but you should now be careful, as a significant number of early investors who bought the coin at $1 may launch take-profit mode.

Although the crypto market continues to show stability, Bitcoin ignores overbought technical indicators and buyers support the coin every time bears make another attempt to push the BTC down. However, it is worth being cautious. At the moment, Bitcoin may be in the process of consolidation near reached levels but the inability to show continued growth in the short term may still result in a broad correction, which can now affect all altcoins.

The FxPro Analyst Team