Author: Bitcoin went on one of its most impressive runs ever last week, surging over 42% in just a day. Not only did this make last week the best one Bitcoin has had since May, it also brought positive sentiment back to the market, which had previously been fairly bearish.
However, Bitcoin has since retraced and is currently trading at around $9,200. Interestingly enough, BTC flash crashed to slightly above $9,000 earlier today, but it managed to recover fairly quickly. At the time of this writing, Bitcoin is down about 2% on the day.
We also saw a very slight decrease in Bitcoin’s dominance rate, suggesting that altcoins have managed to capitalize somewhat on the flash crash. Indeed, all of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap are trading in the green against BTC, having marked slight increases. ETH is up about 2%, the same as XRP. Bitcoin Cash is up about 3.6%, and all others have seen minor gains in the range of 0.5% – 1.5%.
Total Market Capitalization: $247 Billion | BTC Market Capitalization: $166 Billion | BTC Dominance Index: 67.2%
Major Cryptocurrency Headlines
Bitcoin Cash Spikes 10% as Jihan Wu Resumes Control of Bitmain. Jihan Wu, who stepped away from Bitmain’s operations at the beginning of this year, has since resumed control over the company, ousting the CEO, Ketuan Zhan. In an email to staff, Wu directed employees to not take any orders from Zhan or participate in meetings organized by him. Bitcoin Cash’s price rose by 10% on the news. Wu has previously expressed his support for the cryptocurrency, as Bitmain spent around 70% of its 2017 operating cash flow to buy BCH.
China’s CCIEE Chair: We Will Be the First to Launch Central Bank Digital Currency. The vice-chairman of China’s Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE), Huang Qifan, maintained that the country will be the first to launch a blockchain-based central bank digital currency. He also said that he doesn’t believe in Facebook and its potential cryptocurrency, Libra. However, he feels that digital currencies of the kind are needed because conventional payment methods are outdated.
NEO and Other Made-in-China Cryptocurrencies See Huge Price Gains. The news from China sparked a rally throughout the cryptocurrency market. However, China-based projects saw particularly impressive gains. Bytom, NEO, Ontology, Qtum, and GXChain were among the more notable gainers.
The Biggest Winners and Losers
NoahCoin (+1177%)
NoahCoin rallied hard, surging upwards of 1,100% in less than a day. The project recently announced that users could swap their tokens for native ones. Given that this update was made around a month ago, however, there is no apparent reason for the recent surge. In any case, NoahCoin is currently trading at around $0.004, which is a staggering increase compared to its price a day ago when it was only $0.00028.
IOST (+31%)
IOST is another project which saw significant gains over the past 24 hours despite the seemingly stalling cryptocurrency market. Having increased by upwards of 30%, IOST is currently trading at around $0.0075. Interestingly enough, it surged even more against Bitcoin, gaining more than 35%. The project’s total market cap is now over $90 million.
Bytom (-10%)
Bytom was one of the biggest gainers during last week’s rally, as mentioned above. The coin surged about 80% following the news out of China, but it has since cooled off and is actually down over the past 24 hours. BTM marked a decrease of around 10% and its price is currently around $0.11, though its total market cap remains well above $113 million. The cryptocurrency is also down around 7.5% against BTC.
