Bitcoin’s price has been slowly going up recently, nearly reaching $90,000. But yesterday, its price suddenly dropped by about $3,000 in just a few minutes. Other cryptocurrencies, often called altcoins (Altcoins are all cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin), have copied Bitcoin’s movements. For example, Ethereum (Ethereum is a platform known for smart contracts and its token Ether) dropped closer to $2,900, and XRP (XRP is a fast cryptocurrency platform created by Ripple Labs) fell to $1.85.
Bitcoin Hits $89.5K but Can’t Stay There
Bitcoin (Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency that works without central control) had a very active week just before Christmas. Several times, its price went up and down between $85,000 and $90,000. At one point, its price hit a low of $84,400 after news came out about U.S. inflation rates for November. Over the weekend, its price improved and went slightly higher last Monday.
Bitcoin’s price even rose to $90,400, which was the highest in about a week. At first, this increase looked promising. But soon, sellers, also called ‘bears,’ gained control and pushed Bitcoin’s price down to below $87,000.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were not very eventful for Bitcoin. Then, on Friday, Bitcoin tried to rise in value again. This time, it couldn’t even reach $90,000 before the bears stopped it. Within an hour, its price fell to $86,500. Bitcoin has since gone up slightly, and it’s now around $1,000 higher. Still, its price is 1.5% lower compared to the previous day.
Bitcoin’s total market value, also called market capitalization (Market capitalization is the total value of a company or cryptocurrency), is now under $1.750 trillion. Its dominance, which shows how much of the total cryptocurrency market value Bitcoin makes up, has stayed steady at 57.5%, according to CoinGecko.
Zcash (ZEC) Rises Quickly
Ethereum’s price climbed near $3,000 earlier but failed to go higher. It needs to rely on $2,900 as support to avoid dropping more. XRP is now far below its $1.90 support level after losing 1.5% in value on the day. Among larger cryptocurrencies, Dogecoin (DOGE) lost the most value, followed by Chainlink (Chainlink is used to connect blockchain applications with real-world data).
On the other hand, some cryptocurrencies, like Monero (Monero focuses on privacy and hides transaction details), showed slight gains. Zcash (Zcash is another privacy-focused cryptocurrency) went up over 13% and now costs more than $500. Another cryptocurrency, called RAIN, also increased by 10%, reaching about $0.008.
The total value of all cryptocurrencies combined, known as the cryptocurrency market (Cryptocurrency market), stayed above $3 trillion. However, it lost $40 billion since its highest point yesterday.