Crypto market overview: Bitcoin falls in arbitrage trap amid Tether sell-off

Tether sell-off triggered by Bitfinex issues that caused the exchange to temporarily stop fiat deposits led to a massive bullish assault on the cryptocurrency market on Monday. 

“People were willing to pay more to get hold of bitcoin and get off USDT as worries circulated about credit risk,” Charles Hayter, co-founder of CryptoCompare, commented on the situation as cited by Marketwatch

All major coins demonstrated a strong growth amid increased volatility and trading volumes. Moreover, Bitcoin was trading at a 10% premium on  Bitfinex, creating favorable conditions for arbitrage.

The market calmed, but discrepancies with exchange rates on major trading platform sill exist. Thus, BTC/USD is changing hands at $6,444 on Kraken, on Bitfinex, the third largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, the price of BTC is registered at $6,741, while on trading platform WEX, it is as high as $8,666.

According to CoinMarketCap data, the average price of bitcoin is now set at $6.687, which is 4.6% higher since this time on Monday.

Ethereum is changing hands at $209.74, gaining 6% on a day-on-day basis, while Ripple's XRP jumped as high as 10% to trade at $0.4552 by the time of writing.

The total cryptocurrency market capitalization slipped to $211B from $221B reached on Monday.