Ethereum Breaks Past $900 As Altcoins Go Nuts

Ethereum, the second-largest coin by market cap, today broke past $900 in a final weekend push. The price is still about $500 off Ethereum’s all-time high of $1,432, which it set in January 2018. 

Ethereum’s weekend push means that the coin has risen by 20% in the past day and 43% in the past week. Its current price, $912, means that it has a market cap of $104 billion. This is about a sixth of Bitcoin’s market cap; Bitcoin has a market cap of $626 billion, as of this writing. 

Alt-Szn is among us once again. All of the alts were up today: Dogecoin by 70%, VeChain by 26%, Litecoin by 17% and Maker by 15%. Even Tether, the cryptocurrency that’s supposed to be pegged to the US dollar, hit $1.02 today. 

Only poor XRP, the coin that often benefits the most from altcoin pushes, fell; the coin fell by 1.41% today and 22% in the past week. Its collapse its down to the lawsuit the US Securities and Exchange Commission slapped on its creators. 

That, and privacy coin Monero, which this week crashed along with ZCash and Dash, two coins with strong privacy features, after crypto exchange Bittrex announced it will soon delist them. Monero fell by 3%, down 16% in the past week, while ZCash managed to pull it back and gain 1% this week (though it’s still down 8%). Dash is up 0.27% but still down by 13% in the past week.

Ryan Taylor, CEO of Dash Core Group told Decrypt, “We have reached out to Bittrex to offer assistance with addressing concerns of any third parties such as payment processors or regulators. Dash has been delisted from other exchanges in the past and we’ve been highly successful getting relisted once our support is made available.”

Driving the push is Bitcoin, the largest coin by market cap that this week rose to highs of $34,408, an all-time high. That means that Bitcoin has risen by about $4,000 this weekend. 

Analysts put this down to an influx of institutional investors, a rogue algo-trader and a surge of activity from retail investors. 

Some feel Bitcoin’s staggering rise could be the result of a crossover into mainstream acceptance. Skybridge Capital, the hedge fund of former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, will open a huge bitcoin fund on Monday, and MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor will continue to support the token, after giving it the ultimate vote of confidence with a ten-figure investment. 

It seems the token’s high-profile observers, like Elon Musk and Warren Buffet, walk a careful line between cool commentary, playful mockery, and outright derision. After its recent price bump, one can only speculate how they must feel about this bull run.