Ether (ETH) seems to be recovering after reaching new lows in more than a year a few weeks ago. The popular virtual currency spiked 20% in the last few days breaking the $130 barrier. This is very bullish for ETH that lost its position as the second largest virtual currency after being surpassed by XRP.
Ether Spikes 20%
Virtual currencies have been in a bear trend during this year. Ethereum was one of the cryptocurrencies that lost more than 90% of their value since their all-time high. At the beginning of January 2018, Ethereum was traded close to $1,400. However, a few weeks ago, ETH touched $88 per coin. That represents a 93.7% decrease during this year.
At the same time, since November, Ethereum lost almost 60% of its value. In November, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced enforcement actions against two Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). This was very bearish for Ethereum since most of the ICO tokens and projects have been released on top of the Ethereum network.
All the market followed the same path. Bitcoin (BTC), for example, lost almost 50% of its value moving from $6,300 down to $3,250. The whole cryptocurrency market capitalization lost also, more than 50% of its value in just a few days.
When Ethereum dropped after the announcement of the SEC, XRP experienced a momentaneous growth that allowed it to take the second position as the largest cryptocurrency. Bitcoin has always been the largest digital asset and Ethereum has been in the second position for around a year. XRP worked as a hedge during this hard time for the crypto market, being the best performer during several weeks.
At the time of writing, Ethereum is the third largest virtual currency in the market. It has a market capitalization of $13.56 billion. At the same time, XRP has a market cap of $15.38, which shows that the distance between these two cryptocurrencies has been shortened. Each ETH coin can be purchased for $130 according to CoinMarketCap. In the last 24 hours, Ethereum registered the largest price increase among the top 65 cryptocurrencies. It has grown by 17% in just 24 hours.
In the last 7 days, it has also registered an increase of 50%. This allowed it to become the second-best performer after Bitcoin Cash (BCH) in a week among the top 10.
