Yahoo Finance Bitcoin on the Move, but in the Shadows of Litecoin
Following a choppy weekend that left Bitcoin in the red, Bitcoin gained 10% on Monday to end the day at $8,922.12, with a relatively quiet day on the news wires providing support to the cryptomarket through the day.
It was a mixed day for Bitcoin on Tuesday, with the first half of the day seeing Bitcoin test sub-$8,400 levels, before making a partial recovery to end the day down 3.2% at $8,608.27.
There has been strong resistance at $9,000 of late, with Bitcoin struggling to break through to Saturday’s $9,090.8 high, which had been touched all too briefly.
Few major cryptocurrencies were able to end the day in positive territory on Tuesday, with Bitcoin amongst the majority that partially reversed Monday’s gains.
In spite of the news wires doing little damage to the cryptomarkets through the first half of the week, investors have remained relatively cautious, which has been reflected in Bitcoin’s dominance levels that have held at 34.7% – 34.9% levels.
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Following Tuesday’s fall, which stemmed from a bearish start to the day that saw losses too great to recoup by the close, sentiment across the cryptomarket has seen some improvement through the early part of the day today.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is up 3.74% to $8,841.57, easing back from an intraday high $8,915 hit in the last hour, with a bullish trend having developed through the start of the day.
With Bitcoin’s first major resistance level sitting at $8,920, a move through to $9,000 levels will be needed to avoid an afternoon pullback towards this morning’s low $8,504.57, which could test the first major resistance level of $8,328 later in the day.
With the Cboe Bitcoin Futures February contract, expiring today, sitting at $8,870 and the March contract sitting at $8,880, the futures market continues to give Bitcoin little room for manoeuvre, with the ranges sitting tightly against resistance levels.
It feels like a breakout is needed, but whether today is the day remains to be seen.
Elsewhere, Bitcoin Cash continues to sit in the shadows of big brother, currently up 3.74% to $1,263.7, while the story of the day is Litecoin, which is considered by many to be Bitcoin’s main adversary in the battle to become the first viable alternative to fiat money.
Litecoin has managed to hold on to early gains, currently up 14.26% to $181.57, with many in the market having long speculated on whether Litecoin will eventually replace Bitcoin at the top of the crypto tree.
There’s a long way to go for Litecoin to get there, with Bitcoin’s market cap having recovered to $150.4bn, significantly higher than Litecoin’s $10.1bn. But, as we saw with Ripple in late 2017, money can flood in rapidly and when considering where the current total cryptomarket cap sits, there’s around $400bn that has yet to return to the table, and that’s more than enough to propel Litecoin to the top.
It sets up for an interesting showdown at the end of this month and, while early movers embraced Bitcoin and its concept and alternative payment method, functionally LitePay must be a far superior platform for the Litecoin team to be rolling it out this month.
Time will tell, but pressure on the alternative true cryptocurrencies is on and this can only be the beginning of more true cryptocurrencies hitting the market.
While we see fiat money come in many forms, whether U.S Dollar, UK Pound or EUR for example, the next debate will be whether there is a place in the world for multiple cryptocurrencies. It’s hard to see the benefit, so who comes out on top could spell the end for the rest.
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This article was originally posted on FX Empire
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