Building a Base? Crypto Market Hovers Around $500 Billion

With bitcoin above $11,000, the market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies is gyrating around the $500 billion mark – and possibly building a base for a step higher.

As of writing, the total value of all cryptocurrencies around $480 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. The figure has risen by 43.20 percent from the Feb. 6 low of $276 billion. However, over the last three days, the wider crypto market has consolidated in the range of $475 billion to $520 billion.

In the last 24 hours, the total value has dropped by $32 billion as the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap suffered losses.

However, bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency looks set to rally soon, thus the probability of total value of all cryptocurrencies breaching the recent range on the higher side are good.

Bitcoin BTC$87,947.80 suffered an overnight drop of more than $1,000. Prices hit a low of $10,948.20 in Asian trading hours today, and were last seen at $11,143 – down 3 percent in the last 24 hours.

Still, as reported today, BTC is looking on track to test the long-term inflection point at $12,300 soon.

Further, bitcoin ranks second from the bottom on the list of losers in the last 24 hours among top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.

Litecoin

BTC$87,947.80 is the top loser today, with 8.96 percent drop in the last 24 hours – a decline could be due to profit taking, given the cryptocurrency has rallied more than 100 percent from the Feb. 6 low of $106.94.

Investors poured money into LTC last week with the hope of making easy money via litecoin cash hard fork. However, post-fork LTC has remained resilient and is continuing its love affair with the 23.6 percent Fibonacci retracement level of $222 on Coinbase's GDAX exchange. As of writing, the cryptocurrency is changing hands at $222.68, according to CoinMarketCap.

Meanwhile, bitcoin cash (BCH) is down 8.69 percent. Its U.S. dollar exchange rate (BCH/USD) witnessed a bullish inverse head and shoulder breakout last week, but lacked the strength to cut through a bigger head-and-shoulders neckline resistance (former support). On Bitfinex, prices fell to a six-day low of $1,322.70 today.

Also, of particular interest is dash. The cryptocurrency has replaced IOTA as the tenth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. It's also the most resilient cryptocurrency of last 24 hours, down only 2 percent, while it ranks third on the list of gainers from the Feb. 6 lows among the top 10 cryptocurrencies.

Disclosure: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership stake in Coinbase.

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