Bitcoin ended the challenging 2020 on a high note and entered the new year with a fresh all-time high at $29,550. Polkadot has mimicked BTC’s achievement with another all-time high, while Ripple has recovered some of the recent losses.
It’s safe to say that bitcoin has been on a roll in the past several days. After recovering from the brief dips below $26,000, BTC went on a tear, resulting in breaking above $29,000 and painting a new all-time high at $29,300 a few days ago.
On the last day of 2020, the bears took control and drove BTC to a low beneath $28,000. However, the cryptocurrency refused to stay down and, in the following hours, initiated another impressive leg up as the new year began.
This one resulted in BTC charting its latest ATH of $29,550 (on Bitstamp). Despite retracing slightly since then, bitcoin still hovers above $29,000.
The analytics company Santiment said that the increasing number of daily active addresses on the Bitcoin network had supported the most recent price push. The firm has repeatedly highlighted that the active addresses are intertwined with BTC’s price performance.
Most top ten alternative coins have remained relatively steady on a 24-hour scale. Ethereum (-1%), Bitcoin Cash (-0.5%), Chainlink (-1.5%), and Cardano (-0.6%) have charted minor losses. In contrast, Binance Coin (1.6%) and Litecoin (1.7%) have added some value.
However, Polkadot has continued with its notable performance as of late with another 8% surge. Consequently, DOT has painted a new all-time high of about $9.5.
Despite ending 2020 with controversy and massive price drops, Ripple’s native token has increased by 7% in a day to $0.23. Nevertheless, XRP is still down by about 70% since the SEC brought charges against the payment processor in mid-December 2020.
Further gains are evident from lower- and mid-cap altcoins. Algorand leads with a 15% increase. Reserve Rights (13%), Uniswap (12%), Avalanche (12%), NXM (12%), Ocean Protocol (11%), and Elrond (10%) are next.
The total market cap has broken above $770 billion and has closed the gap to the ATH of slightly over $800 billion.
