A crypto recovery may be at hand. Two days after the upcoming Bitcoin Cash (BCH) fork wiped $30bn from the market, virtual currencies across the board have started to recoup some of their losses. Traders hope the worst is over.
The market has been on a steady upward trend for the past 24 hours, following a short, sharp dip below the $180bn mark at just after 15:00 GMT. Crypto’s total value has moved from approximately $181bn at 15:30 UTC, to its current valuation at just under $185bn.
All of the top ten – excluding Bitcoin Cash – are in the green today. Among the payment coins, Bitcoin (BTC) is up by 2%; Litecoin (LTC) by 2.5% and Monero (XMR) by 5%. EOS leads the platform tokens with a 3.5% rise, with Cardano (ADA) just below at 3.4%. Ether(ETH) is up by 2% but still well below the $200, long considered the coin’s floorprice. Remittance and settlement token Stellar Lumens (XLM) is up by 8%; a $500m boost in its total value.
XRP has also staged a strong recovery with 5.5% growth; it has actually surpassed Ether as the second largest virtual currency by market cap. This is the third time this has happened since the start of September, and this time it may be permanent. XRP’s market cap was $600m higher than that of ETH, at the time of writing.
Bitcoin Cash is still down, unsurprisingly. In the first few hours after the hard fork, which finally happened at just after 18:00 UTC yesterday evening, BCH actually increased in value, moving from roughly $415 to $422 by the end of the day. But at around 10:00 UTC this morning, the coin dropped in value, losing around $200m from its market cap. The coin is currently hovering just above the $400 mark, a far cry from $550 it was trading at the same time last Friday.
Is the crypto recovery on?
Sentiment last week was that the market was on the verge of a bull breakout. By crypto standards, prices had been relatively stable since mid-September. Analysts were suggesting that these were the new floorprices, above which any discernible rise could be interpreted as a bullish signal that might well gain momentum.
Price rises had already started to slow, but it was only on Wednesday that the uncertainty created by the BCH fork finally boiled over into other assets. Markets experienced two sharp drops over the course of the day, one in the morning and one in the late afternoon. The market fell well below the $200bn mark, hitting $180bn at around 20:30 UTC.
Crypto appears to have started on the long road to recovery, but hopes for a bull-run have been shelved for the time being. As the market clambers out of the wreckages and shakes the dust from its clothes, the main goal now is to stay on its feet.
The author is invested in BTC and ETH, which are mentioned in this article.
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