Crypto Market Watch: A Red New Year Eve?

334
Crypto Market Watch: A Red New Year Eve?
Advertisement
   

December 31, 2018: With less than 5 hours left to a new year (UTC), almost all the top 20 cryptocurrencies are battling with little red. The total cryptocurrency cap is currently about $280 billion, which is almost 80% decline in rate when compared to Dec 31, 2017, but investors are still very optimistic for a better 2019.

Bitcoin is still leading the pack, even though it is recording slight loss of about 1.90% at press time with its current price at $3,795. Just a few days ago, bitcoin was trading above $4200, before falling back to almost $3600 on Friday, Dec 28. Since then the cryptocurrency has been maintaining a price within the range of $3700 and $4000.

On this day last year, bitcoin value hovered around $13,400, which now signifies a 72% loss in value within the last 12 months.

Ripple XRP, the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, is battling with losses of more than 2.50% over the last 24 hours to press time. The centralized coin also had a rough ride in the last 12 months after trading as high as $2.4 and $3.5 on December 31, 2017, and Jan 4, 2018, respectively. XRP price at press time is $0.35 with a market cap of $14.5 billion.

Advertisement  

Ethereum (ETH), currently the third largest coin by market cap is also down by 1.59% at the end of the last trading session with press time price at $136 and a market cap of $14.2 billion, less than $3 million shy of XRP’s. We could see Ethereum taking back its position as the second largest coin within the first few days of January 2019. Ether price at this time last year was almost $800, which now translates to 82% decline over the last 12 months.

The other cryptocurrencies in the top 20 are down with losses between 1%-4%, except IOTA, BNB, and WAVES, who are recording gains of 1.04%, 3.71%, and 6.14% respectively.

What does 2019 hold? Happy new year!