Key Takeaways
- Digital assets maintain their weekly highs as Friday trading sets in
- Alternative coins lead the rally, with Solana at the forefront, up about 70% this week
Major Cryptocurrencies Soaring
The cryptocurrency market is on pace to log the week in positive territory, led by gains of alternative coins. While Bitcoin’s weekly performance is so far muted with a minor upside of roughly 1%, or about $9bn, other major digital assets have lifted the market capitalization by about 5%, or $10bn. This has been ongoing since Monday in order to reach a market capitalization of over $2.2tn.
On Thursday, the largest cryptocurrency rose above $50,000, a threshold that has proved difficult to overtake. Bitcoin’s price reached a session high of $50,350 per coin but later slipped under the mark and finished the session at $49,500.
Still, the original cryptocurrency gained about 2.6% on the day, gaining for a second consecutive day.
The price of Bitcoin has been captivated in the area of $50,000 to $46,000 for the past two weeks. Besides briefly surpassing the $50,000 on Aug. 23, the milestone was last hit in mid-May when the token was in a steep decline.
Optimism Around DeFi and NFTs
Other large-cap cryptocurrencies also gained on Thursday as the broad-based move higher affected the majority of the top 10 digital assets by market share. Ether, the second-biggest coin, added nearly 2% to its valuation and closed the day at $3,800 per token.
The Ethereum cryptocurrency logged another day in the green, its fourth consecutive session in positive territory with overall gains of 17% for the period.
The third most valuable asset on the crypto board, Cardano, neared a $100bn market value. While Solana added about 20% to surpass its recent all-time high of $130 and reach a fresh record of nearly $150 early on Friday. Solana has advanced more than 70% this week alone.
Recent optimism around DeFi and NFTs has shifted the attention from Bitcoin to blockchain solutions. The smart-contracts arena has allowed plenty of opportunities for innovation and that has put Ethereum in focus, along with Solana, and Cardano.
Despite the halt in Bitcoin’s price rally, Bitcoin maximalists, or those who claim that only the original cryptocurrency matters, continue to believe the orange coin is poised for a bigger price gain by year-end.
Nevertheless, traders and investors in the fast-emerging cryptocurrency market decided to diversify their portfolios with alternative selections. Consequently, the market share of Bitcoin has slipped from almost 70% in early January to less than 42% in early September.
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