Crypto market news: cryptocurrencies to watch right now
The price of bitcoin has hit a new all-time high amid a record-breaking rally that has seen it double in price since July.
The cryptocurrency reached above $68,500 for the first time in its history, marking gains of more than 350 per cent over the last year.
In crypto market news, the story that’s dominating them all right now is PayPal’s plans to allow users to buy and sell digital assets. Only four coins are going to be supported when the product launches, and given how they’re going to be made available to millions of people overnight, they’re definitely the top cryptocurrencies to watch right now.
Here, we’re going to set out why Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin are the cryptocurrencies to watch out for.
Cryptocurrencies to watch: Bitcoin
Inevitably, any article on cryptocurrency market news needs to start with BTC. Following on from the PayPal announcement, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency surged through $12,000 and ended up hitting a high of $13,329.18. To put that into context, this is an increase of 14.2 per cent over a seven-day period.
In crypto market news, BTC has been causing a flurry of excitement because of how ever-increasing numbers of institutional investors are snapping up this cryptocurrency. Some analysts have even predicted that there could be shortages in the future, given how it only has a total supply of 21 million.
Bitcoin has spent most of the past 90 days above $10,000, and the winning streak also saw it record its highest weekly close since January 2018 in the week ending October 25. Data from Skew suggests BTC has a 7 per cent chance of returning to its all-time high of $20,000 by the end of this year. However, investor sentiment rises substantially over a longer time frame: the same research suggests the likelihood of BTC hitting ATHs increases to 20 per cent by June of next year.
Zooming in to the here and now, the question is whether the news on the crypto market is going to remain bullish. There are fears that we could see a slight retracement in the weeks that lie ahead, but others argue there’s little resistance standing in the way of BTC hitting $14,000.
Bloomberg analyst Mike McGlone is particularly interested at how BTC has managed to breach stubborn resistance at $12,000, while the Nasdaq 100 has cooled somewhat after hitting record highs in September. He says this “may indicate firmer underpinnings for the crypto in 2021”.
Like Bitcoin, Ethereum has a lot going for it, even when you discount the fact that it’s going to be supported by PayPal. ETH, and by extension ERC-20 tokens, are shaping up to be the lifeblood of the decentralised finance space. The total value locked in DeFi protocols has continued to rise in recent months and to illustrate how popular Ethereum is, it’s worth noting that this blockchain is on track to process $1tr (£769bn, €847bn) of transactions in 2020.
However, as we’ve discussed in previous articles here on Currency.com, there’s growing impatience concerning the launch of Ethereum 2.0. Researchers remain adamant we’ll see the genesis block of the Beacon Chain before this year draws to a close. A successful debut could drive ETH upwards, but further complications could force DeFi platforms to explore other blockchains where scalability is much less of a concern.
In the week ending October 25, ETH/USD surged by 8.14 per cent. Although this is healthy, it pales in comparison with the gains BTC enjoyed.
It’s interesting to see that PayPal has opted to support Bitcoin Cash. Of course, this cryptocurrency is a hard fork from Bitcoin, and right now, BCH is facing some challenges of its own. Reports suggest that we’re going to see a BCH hard fork on November 15, creating yet another digital asset. All of this drama within the developer community will likely confuse and alienate everyday consumers who were interested in using it for purchases.
As long as this turmoil can be put to bed, BCH could be a compelling digital asset when it comes to the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies. Its ambition is to become “sound money that is usable by everyone in the world”, a virtual currency that allows people to be paid quickly, cross-border transactions to be executed for free, and for savings to be stored without the need for middlemen.
Over the seven-day period ending October 25, Bitcoin Cash’s gains against the dollar were largely in line with Ethereum’s, coming in at about 8.23 per cent.