By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 25th, 2024
The top-three cryptocurrencies by market cap have made significant gains over the last one month and are further gearing to higher valuations.
It looks like the top three major players of the cryptocurrency market – Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple – are on a roll with all the three nearing their next immediate milestones of $10000, $800 and $1 respectively. The overall valuation of the crypto markets has surpassed $450 billion and, according to CoinMarketCap, is currently making $457 billion.
There has been a lot of buying interest growing for Bitcoin recently as the largest cryptocurrency by market-cap surged by over six percent in the last 24-hours and touched $9800. Analysts say that one of the major reasons for Bitcoin to shoot on Thursday was the announcement coming from Goldman Sachs, who is launching its first Bitcoin trading platform involving Bitcoin and its derivative products.
Participation of this institutional giant from the Wall Street is certainly a big development in itself, and a sign that the digital currency markets are now seen positively in the global financial space.
Michael Moro, chief executive of Genesis Global Trading said:
“There’s been some level of sentiment amongst institutional investors that the asset class isn’t legitimate until the big banks get involved. And while they’re still not trading the underlying, Goldman getting involved in the forwards is an important first step.”
At the press time, Bitcoin is trading at $9703.13 with a surge of over 5.5% in the last 24-hours. In the past one month, the cryptocurrency has gained 50%. The overall market cap of Bitcoin as on date is $165 billion.
On the other hand, Ethereum is seen making some phenomenal northward moves in the last four days starting May 1st, Tuesday. On May 1st, Ethereum was trading at a price of $642 and since then it has increased by nearly 25%. Today, at the press time Ethereum has surged by 10.5% and is currently trading just short of $800 ($796), according to the data on CoinMarketCap. In the past one month, Ethereum has delivered over 100% gains from its low of $368 on April 6, 2018. The overall market cap of Ethereum as on date is $78 billion.
This rise of Ethereum is quite surprising considering the fact that it has been on the radar of regulatory bodies like the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who recently said that Ether tokens might be qualified as securities.
However, Google co-founder Sergey Brin recently credited Ethereum for the boom in computing taking place currently. Sergey said:
“We are truly in a technology renaissance, an exciting time where we can see applications across nearly every segment of modern society. There are several factors at play in this boom of computing. First, of course, is the steady hum of Moore’s Law. The second factor is greater demand, stemming from advanced graphics in gaming and, surprisingly, from the GPU-friendly proof-of-work algorithms found in some of today’s leading cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum.”
The third-largest cryptocurrency – Ripple – has also posted significant gains in the last one month. Ripple has gained nearly 100% from its low of $0.47 on April 6. At the press time, Ripple is trading at the price of $0.91 with its market valuations crossing $35 billion.