Cryptocurrency Market Surpasses $400 Billion Mark

The cryptocurrency market has now surpassed the $400 billion mark, a level  last seen in March. Bitcoin has crossed $9000, a level that has proven elusive for several weeks now.

It posted a strong performance in early trading to reach more than $9300 before slightly retracing. It is now trading at $9314  according to data from CoinMarketCap but slightly lower at $9288 on Bitfinex.

Bitcoin Cash continues to post strong gains for several days in a row. It shot up more than 5% compared to gains of more than 16% showing a slowing momentum. A unit is now trading for $1461 according to CoinMarketCap. Overall, it has nearly doubled in value from a week ago at 89%. Total market capitalisation now stands at $25.4 billion.

An upcoming BCH hard fork slated for May 15 could be the reason for the dramatic gains. The Bitcoin ABC  update will see the current block size of 8MB quadrupled to 32MB.  The update is expected to make it more suitable for retail use. Bitcoin’s block size is significantly smaller at 1MB making it difficult for everyday transactions.

Another possible reason is a mining pool that recently claimed it validates 8% of all BCH transactions. The claims by the group calling itself Antpool, which also burns Bitcoin Cash daily to reduce supply saw BCH prices shoot up by more than 25% towards the end of last week.

Best Performers

EOS is one of the best performers today having posted gains of 16.5% so far. Each unit is now going for $13.10.

Ethereum, the second most valuable cryptocurrency is also performing strongly after adding more than 9% of its value.

The renewed surge in the market now puts the total market capitalisation at more than $426 billion.

Over $30 billion worth of cryptocurrencies have been transacted in the last 24 hours. 7 days ago, on April 17, total market capitalisation was placed at $330.4 billion meaning the market has added a humongous $96 billion.

Just yesterday, the total market cap was $387 billion which means about $39 billion has been added in the last 24 hours.

Other notable gainers in the last 24 hours include EOS at 19%, Litecoin at nearly 7%, Cardano at 9% and Stellar at 6%. EOS has gained more than 58% in the last seven days. Tron has gained more than 54% over the same period.

The best performing cryptocurrency in the top 100 is Bitcoin Private at more than 113% in the last 7 days alone.

Bitcoin’s dominance has been reduced to 37% from about 42% a week ago. A bullish market typically  eats away at Bitcoin’s dominance.