Bitcoin Price Fails to Cross $4,500; Crypto Market Cap Hits Record $159 Billion
The bitcoin price entered the weekend poised to cross the $4,500 threshold, but a Saturday slip pulled it pulled it well below $4,400, preventing it from reaching a new all-time high. The ethereum price, meanwhile, continued its stealthy climb, briefly rising as high as $350 Monday morning.
Altogether, the cryptocurrency market cap rose to a record $158.9 billion before dipping to $156 billion during the early hours of August 28.
Bitcoin Price Drops to $4,309
The bitcoin price rose as high as $4,454 on August 25, making it appear likely that it would break above $4,500 for the first time. Unfortunately, it slipped below $4,300 the next day and spent the rest of the weekend trying to fight back to $4,400. It briefly accomplished this on August 27 but entered another decline on Monday morning. At present, the bitcoin price is $4,309, representing a single-day decline of 1%. Nevertheless, the bitcoin price is up 6% for the week, bringing its market cap to $71.2 billion.
One factor that could be contributing to investor hesitation is worsening relations between proponents of Bitcoin Core and SegWit2x. Over the weekend, several prominent figures engaged in a public feud on Twitter, with both Core developers and New York Agreement signatories accusing each other of using threats to advance their agendas.
Ethereum Price Broaches $350
The ethereum price has not experienced shocking rallies like those seen by Monero and Dash this month, but it has made steady progress toward the record levels it set in June. This past week, the ethereum price climbed about 5%, rising as high as $352 before tapering to $340 at present. The ethereum price is now within $75 of its all-time high of $411.
Bitcoin Cash Price Trends Down to $600
Bitcoin cash is the only top 10 cryptocurrency with a 7-day price decline. Over that period, the bitcoin cash price dropped 9%, from about $650 to a present value of $602. This reduced bitcoin cash’s market cap below $10 billion, but it still retains a $2.3 billion edge on 4th-place Ripple.
Litecoin Price Headlines Altcoin Markets
Aside from bitcoin cash, every top 10 cryptocurrency made a weekly advance, and most of those were greater than 5%. The Ripple price led the way, maintaining a 26% increase even after a much-hyped announcement did not live up to investor hopes. That said, the Ripple price has trended down since the announcement and now sits below $0.20.
The litecoin price is in the middle of an impressive run. On August 25, it punched through $50 during a bitcoin cash sell-off. It continued to surge throughout the weekend, rising to a record $64 during the waning hours of August 27. At present, the litecoin price is $61, representing a weekly increase of 32%.
Litecoin’s rally enabled it to edge past Dash to reclaim the 5th place spot in the market cap rankings. Dash is on a record run of its own, having climbed above $400 earlier in the week. The Dash price has since dipped below that threshold, but its current mark of $357 still translates into a 7-day climb of 24%.
The NEM price spent most of the last week under the radar, but it has quietly climbed more than 5% in the past 24 hours. At present, the NEM price is $0.288. Eighth-ranked IOTA, on the other hand, ended the week little movement.
The week’s most impressive rally came from the Monero price, which soared more than 90% after Bithumb added XMR pairs to its widely-popular cryptocurrency exchange. Monero is currently priced at $143.
The final spot in the top 10 is held by NEO, whose price rose 7% for the week and currently rests at $38. If NEO gains about $100 million in market cap and all other coin prices remain equal, then every top 10 cryptocurrency will have a valuation greater than $2 billion.
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