with the top four blockchain assets now worth over $1 billion each. It seems much of the surge is from new money pouring into the market. This is evident from the exceptionally high trading volumes, reaching new record total for the entire ecosystem of over $2.2 billion a day. One likely reason for this is that the news of recent all-time highs are drawing in more and more new traders attracted to the opportunity.

Bitcoin is now at a record high of $1600, rising 7% since yesterday, giving it a market cap of over $26 billion. Ethereum is now at a record high of $100 rising yesterday, giving it a market cap of over $9 billion. Ripple’s XRP is now at a record high of $0.09, rising 40% since yesterday, giving it a market cap of over $3.4 billion. Litecoin is now at a record high of $25, rising 20% since yesterday, giving it a marketrising over $1.3 billion.

In fact, most of the other 700+ blockchain assets traded around the world are up significantly today. In total, the combined value of the entire market is now at a record $46 billion. While the speed at which we are seeing the value grow can cause fears of a bubble, the figure is not that unbelievable if we compare it to another online payments solution,  Paypal (NASDAQ: PYPL) which has a market cap of $58 billion. All this actually leads to some contradiction regarding the strength of bitcoin. While the original blockchain is the most valuable and keep setting new records, its cryptocurrency competitors are raising relatively faster – and bitcoin’s dominance of the market has fallen to just 57%.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor