The cryptocurrency market has taken a beating this week after CoinMarketCap unexpectedly removed South Korean exchanges from its index, which in turn caused major but temporary uninformed panic sell-offs.
Source: CoinMarketCap
What started out as a scary week for cryptocurrency has begun to make its way back. Like any market, corrections are inevitable but this week proved that the cryptocurrency space is not for the faint of heart. As you can tell from the 7-day graphs above, every top 10 coins say major dips besides Ethereum (available on Coinbase) which still saw high volatility.
Litecoin (available on Coinbase) (LTC)
Source: CoinMarketCap
Litecoin (available on Coinbase), what was the most highly favored aLTCoin going into the holiday season and 2018, seems to have hit somewhat stagnant growth. In just over a week’s time, in mid-December, the coin grew almost 150%. Since that time, however, there have been varied complications such as brief moments of struggling cryptocurrency market, large exchange transaction backups, and the CoinMarketCap fiasco.
Litecoin (available on Coinbase)’s founder, Charlie Lee, just before Christmas sold all of his Litecoin (available on Coinbase) claiming “conflict of interest” and received a 7,500% return on his investment. Litecoin (available on Coinbase)’s blockchain once stood out among the top aLTCoins for its top transaction speeds and larger blocks but since has been overshadowed by newer rising aLTCoins that offer even faster transaction speeds with niche markets. There haven’t been many new developments on an expansion of the project but many Litecoin (available on Coinbase) loyalists are in it for the long-term potential rather than the potential short gains.
Litecoin (available on Coinbase) is currently selling at $236.45, up 3.4% for the day and -26% for the month.
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Bitcoin (available on Coinbase)’s (BTC) price has begun leveling off in the last month, as its futures began trading on major exchanges. In the run up to the Bitcoin (available on Coinbase) futures, the cryptocurrency grew $1,000 a day, for a few days. Since various issues have occurred within the cryptocurrency market and new investors have been temporarily blocked from entering big-time exchanges, Bitcoin (available on Coinbase) seems to have just stumbled along.
Currently, Bitcoin (available on Coinbase) is selling at $13,906.80 a coin, up 3.93% for the day but down -20.71% for the month.
Ethereum (available on Coinbase) (ETH) has had the most successful week this week, breaking a record high over $14,000 this past Wednesday. Ethereum (available on Coinbase)’s blockchain, however, has been dealing with several issues and it is unclear why the coin has done significantly better than its counterparts. Many of its investors are holding the coin for its long-term potential, as its developing team is working hard on its current scalability issues. Ethereum (available on Coinbase) stands out from Bitcoin (available on Coinbase), due to its smart contracts which offer possibilities of various things to be built on top of its blockchain.
At time of reporting, Ethereum (available on Coinbase) is selling at $1,236.64 up 9.34% in 24 hours, and up a staggering 1830.65% for the month.
The biggest gainer on today’s cryptocurrency market is #5 Cardano, which is up 34.80% with #8 Stellar, following closely behind up 26.52%.
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