Bitcoin rate above 10 000 $. But is it actually the leader of increases in virtual currencies?

Bitcoin rate above 10 000 $

Has become. Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, has surpassed the $ 10 mark. Until a few months ago, most people were laughing when they heard that BTC / USD would exceed $ 000. Meanwhile, overcoming the road from 5000 thousand. up to 5 $ took just 10 months. Even the most faithful followers of BTC predicted reaching this level in the next three (!) Years. Does this mean that there is a chance for 1,5 at the end of the year? $? You might think this is madness.

And that's right, the current Bitcoin rate is a dizzying one, as is the percentage increase in value. But is it actually a growth leader?

BTC / USD exchange rate over the last year

Ethereum in the shadow of Bitcoin - wrong?

Bitcoin is an icon of virtual currencies without a doubt. But Ethereum lurks behind him, considered by many experts to be a much more interesting cryptocurrency (read: Bitcoin vs Ethereum - which is better?). However, this time let's leave aside what is better in the context of the construction of instruments, their advantages and what they actually are. As flesh and blood speculators, we will focus on earning opportunities. The trader has to calculate.

Forex is a bigger siphon, lower spreads, better liquidity, or theoretically greater opportunities. But it is also a much more complex market that gathers powerful capital from around the world and crosses the interests of various participants with different goals. Hence, it is considered more complicated and more difficult to predict.

So the cryptocurrency market appears. Fresh, relatively simple, and most of all with huge volatility, although with significantly less leverage and higher fees. There is also the question of how long it will be like this - investing in virtual currencies has become interesting not only for retail speculators, but also investment funds or exchanges offering futures contracts. So the future looks pretty promising.

Be sure to read: Bitcoin Trading - is it actually profitable?

At the moment, there are 1329 different cryptocurrencies available, with the total capitalization of this market estimated at $ 329 billion. Of course, at the time of writing this article, these values ​​have already changed 3 times. So there is no doubt that this market will continue to evolve, and very quickly. Meanwhile, investors' eyes focus on the top ten with the highest capitalization.

Below we present the growth rates for TOP 10 virtual currencies, counted from the beginning of 2017 of the year to today:

• Bitcoin: + 1030 %
• Ethereum: + 5,940%
• Bitcoin Cash: + 295% (available from 23 July 2017)
• Ripple: + 3,846%
• Bitcoin Gold: + 76 % (available from 23 October 2017)
• Litecoin: + 2,087%
• Dash: + 5,546%
• NEO: + 26,013 %
• Moreno: + 1,190%
• IOTA: + 165% (available from 13 June 2017)

The growth leader is undoubtedly NEO, while the Bitcoin price is only on the 7th position, Bitcoin Cash on the 8th position, and Bitcoin Gold on the 10th position. The second is Ethereum growing by approx. 6000%, which is as much as 6 times more than BTC. Does this mean that you have wasted the potential of a really large earnings by focusing only on the popular Bitcoin? Unfortunately, it turns out that yes… 🙂

ETH / USD rate over the last year

Ethereum is much younger - it was established at the beginning of 2016 - while Bitcoin has been on the market for about 6 years. However, ETH, considered a digital currency with much greater potential for development and applications, is in practice a stronger foundation for growth. In the long term, it has a real chance to outperform the current leader with its value.

For us, traders, the problem is the lower availability of ETH on Forex platforms. Most brokers focused on making their BTC available to their clients, bypassing the rest of the crypto instruments. One of the few brokers who decided to introduce it right away the entire range of virtual currencies is XTB.

However, the problem for trading on other crypto-instruments is liquidity, which will only come with increasing popularity. The transaction cost on Ethereum is on average 3-4 times higher than on Bitcoin, and it can deter at this stage.

Cryptocurrencies make noise

The new market is causing a lot of confusion. On the one hand, there are investors and speculators who propose various scenarios - from bubble pumping, to forecasting astronomical valuations for the coming years - through financial industry icons who consider BTC a scam - to regulatory institutions that are full of fears and combine how to control something completely for new and not fully understood (KNF warns against ICO and investing in cryptocurrencies).

And this is currently the biggest threat to the further development of virtual currencies, which in some countries have already been completely banned by state authorities.

Update

Just hours after the publication of this article, Bitcoin hit $ 11 and plunged 500% over the next 4 hours. A serious emotional game begins ...