What happened
The top altcoin by market captailization in the cryptocurrency sphere, Ethereum ( ETH 5.15% ), had a fine Friday. The coin was up by nearly 5% across the preceding 24 hours as of late afternoon trading, a rate that was more than three times the percentage gain of the S&P 500 index of stocks. Investors are clearly feeling more confident about cryptocurrencies, and Ethereum is a top name within that group of assets.
So what
As a whole, cryptocurrencies are coming back in favor after a rather bearish period. They are rightly considered to be relatively risky investments, and in times of global distress (such as the current war in Ukraine) investment money tends to move toward assets deemed safer by many.
Image source: Getty Images.
But numerous investors have begun to feel that those higher-risk plays were oversold, hence the recovery in both tech stocks (always considered more risky compared to, say, blue chips) and cryptocurrencies.
Ethereum is hardly the only cryptocurrency seeing a pronounced upward lift across the past few days — eternal benchmark Bitcoin has also experienced a rise, as have Ethereum rivals Cardano and Solana. Tokens considered to be risky even by the usual crypto standards are also moving up, although their trajectories are wobblier — ever-volatile Shiba Inu posted a nearly 1% bump on Friday, for instance.
Now what
At this point, it’s hard to gauge whether this recent trend indicates a sustained rally, or rather a shorter-term, upward correction. I’d put my money on the latter, as those global challenges (the war and the coronavirus, chiefly) continue to keep the risk level relatively high. Still, the rally should make all crypto investors cautiously optimistic, at least for the short-term viability of this asset class.
This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the “official” recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. We’re motley! Questioning an investing thesis – even one of our own – helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.