Ether, XRP Rise to 1-Month Highs While Bitcoin Falls

Demand for alternative cryptocurrencies has seen their performance rise over the last 24 hours despite bitcoin’s (BTC) failure to take another leg up. It raises the question as to whether the “alt season”, a period where alternative crypto sees considerable growth regardless of BTC’s performance, is finally here.

Ether (ETH) and XRP (XRP) rose between six to 10 percent on the day backed by solid demand seen in large 24-hour trading volumes. The event marks a divergence from recent weeks with BTC’s dominance rating, a share of the total crypto market value, having hit a 30-month high above 70 percent earlier this month.

That number has since dropped to 68.3 percent as interest in alternative cryptos begins to pick up once more. As seen above, both XRP and ETH experienced swift rallies in their price between 10 pm on Sept. 17 and 3:00 am Sept. 18, while BTC was down 1 percent over the same period. Other notable crypto assets such as Stellar (XLM), Binance Coin (BNB) and Litecoin (LTC) are also up between 2.5 and nine percent.

The total market capitalization of all crypto, excluding BTC, also rose by more than $5.4 billion over 24 hours, while total trading volume was up $7.2 billion. It could be a sign that investors are growing wary of any further potential gains in BTC’s growth and looking elsewhere, given that its price has remained within a $300 range for nearly 2 weeks.