The weekend (Sat/Sun not the musician) always brings out the best in the crypto world –whether in volume, price, interactions or news flashes. As other markets close on Friday evening, the cryptocurrency markets keep running every second, minute, day and month.
Since the year began, weekends have had a rather significant impact in the growth of Bitcoin price from $3,500 at the start of the year to $10,100 USD as at time of writing. However, in the past few months, alternative coins (altcoins) have performed better than the pioneer cryptocurrency as reported by Bloomberg on Friday.
The Rise of Altseason?
BTC price momentum subsided in the past month and investors seem to have switched to altcoins. A number of top altcoins have outperformed the undisputed king of cryptocurrency in the last weeks as Ethereum, Ripple, and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) all experienced massive gains in the past fortnight.
Ethereum (ETH), the second-largest crypto in market cap outperformed Bitcoin in six of the past 10 weekdays according to daily closing prices. Furthermore, ETH’s price beat Bitcoin’s in 8 of the past 11 weekends in total daily returns showing investors increasing confidence in the largest altcoin.
Source: Bloomberg
Ripple (XRP) has also witnessed a bullish momentum in the past week growing by 7.1% to trade at $0.28 USD as at time of writing.
Scott Freeman, co-founder and partner of JST Capital spoke to Bloomberg saying altcoins are on the verge of a breakout. As most projects gain real world use cases, investors are expected to increase their stake in the altcoin market Scott explained.
“With the realization that these technologies now are being adopted, they’re starting to solve real problems, and it’s coming to fruition at some level where the value proposition of these things is being recognized more broadly.”
– Scott Freeman
A Tough Mountain to Climb
Despite the latest heroics from altcoins in the past two weeks or so –a period that BTC’s price has remained rather stagnant oscillating around $10,000 USD – the top cryptocurrency is still way ahead of the other altcoins.
Since the start of 2019, ETH/BTC pair dropped by over 40% to trade at 21 million satoshis. XRP/BTC pair plummeted under the 3000 satoshi-mark earlier in the month, representing a 70% drop since the start of the year. XRP is currently trading at 2974 sats, as at press time, 3.3% lower in the past 24 hours.