Yahoo Finance Move Over Bitcoin!
The Bitcoin Clan have been left floundering at the start of the year and Bitcoin has struggled to inspire, with the only good news of the year being the recovery from the end of the 2017 low of $12,050.
Bitcoin may have managed to hold on to the 2nd half of the day bounce on Tuesday, but since then, any attempts to break through to $16,000 levels have been thwarted.
Wednesday’s 2.95% gain will certainly not be grabbing any crypto-headlines and, as was the case on Wednesday, today’s high of $15,430.27 was followed by a sharp pull back to $14,873.95 at the time of writing, with Bitcoin down 1.88% in the early part of the day.
Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold are down 6.28% and 4.23% respectively, with Bitcoin’s fall weighing on the pair, while Litecoin was also feeling the heat, down 4.9%.
It’s not all doom and gloom in the cryptomarkets however, with Ripple’s continued rise drawing plenty of attention and all for the right reasons.
Following the team’s decision to place the XRP coins held into escrow to bring comfort to the markets that there would be no flooding of XRP coins in the event of a price rally, the gains have been exceptional since and one gets the sense that Ripple has only just warmed up.
Not a bad starting point, with Ripple having already surged to the number 2 spot by market cap, with Bitcoin now in its sites. On its current trajectory, it’s not going to take long before Ripple splashes its way past Bitcoin into the number 1 spot. The sudden shift in momentum is no mean feat when considering the surge in the cryptomarkets, with the global market cap having moved above $700bn for the first time on Wednesday.
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Previous surges in the global market cap had usually been attributed to Bitcoin, but things have changed and this week, Bitcoin has seen its market cap fall to around 35% of the global market cap, which is an all-time low.
The roll out of Bitcoin futures looks to have stifled what was once the darling of the cryptoworld and with hot cryptos, including Ripple and Stellar Lumens to play with, Bitcoin’s grip on the number 1 spot is likely to loosen further.
Many had expected Ethereum to challenge Bitcoin, with Ethereum ever present in the funding of ICOs, but with Ripple’s ascendency and trailblazing start to 2018, the momentum alone could see Ripple ride the wave past Bitcoin.
Bitcoin investors may be wondering what might have been and where Bitcoin would be sitting, if the advice of leading financial institutions had been heeded to and the roll out of Bitcoin futures had been delayed in the interest of allowing the market to age more.
But, while the Bitcoin Billionaires will sit on their accumulated wealth, those dreaming of joining the crypto-millionaire club will be on the hunt and Ripple looks to be an obvious choice.
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This article was originally posted on FX Empire
