Bitcoin and Ethereum cooled slightly, while Binance Coin, XRP and BitTorrent surged.
The Easter weekend has been a rather challenging one for the crypto markets, with Bitcoin drifting further away from $60,000.
BTC hit lows of $57,466 in the early hours of Sunday, but rallied towards $59,000 as the new working week began.
Ether remains comfortably above the $2,000 mark after breaking record highs on Friday. Although the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency surged to $2,152.45 on Saturday, it has since pulled back by about 4% to $2,068.
Binance Coin and XRP have been the big gainers over the past 24 hours — hitting $366.73 and $0.73 respectively. In XRP’s case, this amounted to the best weekly close in almost three years, with the altcoin recovering from the dramatic slump that was seen in the aftermath of the SEC announcing a lawsuit against Ripple in December.
We may also be on the brink of seeing a new entrant in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap. BitTorrent has raced up the rankings with 24-hour gains of 70%, taking it above $0.01 for the very first time. Over a seven-day timeframe, BTT has clocked gains of 243% — making it one of the strongest performers in the top 200.
Bitcoin ‘Will Rise Tenfold’
In other developments, Ark Invest — owned by the renowned stockpicker Cathie Wood — has declared that Bitcoin can “comfortably” exceed gold’s $10 trillion market cap, a milestone that could take the price per coin beyond $600,000.
Speaking to The Times, Ark’s cryptoasset analyst Yassine Elmandjra also hit out at central bankers who have criticized Bitcoin for being inefficient and volatile, adding:
“I really think that it’s just outdated arguments as a function of their complete lack of education, which is a function of just their lack of interest in learning about this.”
He added that Bitcoin’s massive price swings and inherent volatility are to be expected because of how its monetary policy is independent. Elmandjra also told the newspaper:
“If you look at gold as a $10 trillion market cap, Bitcoin is about 10% of that, and if we believe bitcoin is a 100 times better version than that, then it’s fairly safe to say that there’s a stark chance that Bitcoin captures a lot of gold and market share, and more.”
