Bitcoin on track for monthly gain

The price of digital currency bitcoin rose on Monday, putting it on track for a solid monthly gain, while rival cryptocurrency Ether extended its recent weakness and headed for a substantial monthly loss.

At last check, a single bitcoin BTCUSD, +2.13% was up 1.1% to $2,776.99, according to cryptocurrency research-and-data site Coindesk.

Bitcoin is off less than a percentage point from its all-time high above $3,000 set on June 11, and on track to end the month 13% higher.

Despite an impressive monthly gain however, July has been very volatile for bitcoin. At some point, bitcoin prices swooned more than 21% in a matter of days. From its peak at 3,018.54 in mid-June, it endured a drop of more than 50%, before recovering to current levels.

Thus far in 2017, bitcoin prices have gained more than 180%.

Bitcoin has been in the news lately due to its impending upgrade with a software called as Segregated Witness or SegWit, that is designed to boots its processing power.

The process also splits bitcoin into two currencies: bitcoin cash and bitcoin. Industry experts expect only a small faction of users to use Bitcoin cash, which means they will avoid a hard fork.

“People are really optimistic that bitcoin is starting to resolve its main issue. The SegWit will get activated on Aug. 1, with investors expecting a smooth transition,” said Meltem Demirors, director, of development at Digital Currency Group.

The recent rise in the price of bitcoin sent its market capitalization to nearly $46 billion, accounting for more than half of the entire market cap for cryptocurrencies which stands at $89.7 billion, according to Coinmarketcap.com.

Bitcoin is, of course, recapturing market share from rivals. For example, Ether, the digital currency that runs on the Ethereum network, declined about 31% over the past month. Ether peaked in June at $395.16 and its market capitalization was briefly equal to that of bitcoin. As of Monday, Ether’s market capitalization was at $18 billion, as it fell nearly 2% to trade at $193.81.

Despite the recent bout of weakness, Ether’s year-to-date gains by far outstrip its rival bitcoin’s advance. Ether is up about 2,300% in 2017, according to Coindesk.

Much of Ether’s weakness in July has come on recent regulatory moves, including a recent announcement from the Securities and Exchange Commission that signaled it would scrutinize a recent torrent of so-called initial coin offerings, or ICOs. ICOs refer to previously unregulated offerings of digital currencies, many of which were tied to the Ethereum blockchain.![]
Demirors, speaking about price movements of digital currencies, noted that there are still no discerning patterns that may explained.

“There is no clear rhyme or reason for any price movements of digital currencies. But money flows into certain [ICO] projects suggest this market is clearly attracting attention of all stripes of investors: family offices, hedge funds and individual investors,”