Bitcoin price update: Bitcoin smashes through $30,000 to $34,000 in less than a day
Historical gains by Bitcoin and Ethereum lead the overall market cap of cryptocurrencies to nearly $1 trillion.
- Bitcoin breaks the $34,000 mark as price triples in 90 days.
- The overall market cap of cryptocurrencies sets a new all-time high after 2 years, above $900 billion.
- Ethereum rises to above $1,000 for the first time since March 2018.
Bitcoin crossed the $34,000 price mark over the weekend, only 24 hours after ploughing through $30,000. The new all-time high means the price of a single BTC has more than tripled in 90 days, since starting October 2020 at around $10,000.
Etheruem has also joined the party, rising 28% over the past 24 hours at the time of writing, to set a local high of just over $1,000 according to Binance data. Other notable daily gains in the top 20 coins by market cap include VeChain up 35%, Bitcoin Cash up 19.5% and Cardano at 17.3%.
Thanks to collective gains across the board, the overall market cap of cryptocurrencies has risen to over $900 billion, setting a new all-time high (ATH). This is significant as the overall market cap had been struggling to rise alongside Bitcoin, as the premier currency rose in value while altcoins struggled to move. Bitcoin market dominance remains high though, sitting at around 69% at the time of writing.
Bitcoin dominance compared to altcoins. Source: Coinmarketcap
The continued dominance of Bitcoin despite the wider crypto market setting a new all-time high demonstrates that this bull run is different from that of 2017/2018 when altcoins contributed significantly. According to Coinmarketcap data, when the market reached its previous all-time high around $852 billion on January 7, 2018, Bitcoin dominance was only at 33%, less than half of what it is today.
This discrepancy may be attributed to a phenomenon known as “alt-season”, in which profits flow from Bitcoin into altcoins following a period of significant gains in BTC. This is seen in the chart above, which shows Bitcoin dominance drastically scaled down from 62% on December 12, 2017 into other coins, notably Ethereum and XRP. Currently, the overall market cap of altcoins is only $271 billion, compared with that of Bitcoin’s $625 billion.
With Bitcoin dominance at such a historical high, it suggests that alt-season for the current bull run is yet to begin, despite a new all-time-high market cap for cryptocurrencies.
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