Crypto Market Overview: Was the US-China trade war responsible for the latest bull run?

• Market goes through bearish correction, following a mini bull run.
• Bitcoin and Chinese Yuan have had an inverse relationship since Trump’s announcement of increased trade tariffs.

Following a mini bull run, which saw the total crypto market cap exceed $263 billion, the market is going through a period of bearish correction, as the traders start cashing out their assets. Reports suggest that the coin movement is directly related to the US-China trade wars, as President Donald Trump has announced that he is going to increase tariffs on Chinese imports. Let’s look at the performance of the top three coins and the biggest winners and losers among the top 20 coins.

Top three coins performance

• BTC/USD: After reaching a high of $8,385 this Thursday, Bitcoin plummeted down to $7,235. It even reached a low of $6,520 this Friday.
• ETH/USD: After charting the highs of $280, the largest altcoin in the market went down to $238.15, reaching lows of $224 this Friday.
• XRP/USD: Ripple reached heights of $0.472 before falling dramatically to $0.382. It reached a low of $0.36.

US-China Trade War a catalyst?

Between May 5, the day Trump announced increased Tariffs on Chinese imports, to this Friday morning, BTC/USD jumped by 26.5%. In the same time interval, Chinese Yuan fell to its lowest level for six months after China responded with similar countermeasures. 

Garrick Hileman, head of research at Blockchain.com and a researcher at the London School of Economics, said about the relationship between Bitcoin and Yuan (aka RMB or “renminbi”):

“We are observing a strong inverse correlation between the RMB’s value and bitcoin, meaning that recent RMB declines over trade tensions have been closely matched by increases in the value of bitcoin.

We can’t be 100 per cent certain that bitcoin’s recent price increase is being driven by concerns over the trade tensions and declines in the RMB’s exchange rate as correlation does not necessarily equal causation.

But this is not the first time we’ve seen significant increases in the value of bitcoin taking place alongside yuan concerns. We also continue to see growing recognition of bitcoin as ‘digital gold’ and it being used as a hedge against various macroeconomic risks.”

Biggest Winners and Losers (Top 20 coins)

• Cosmos (ATOM) is the only winner among the top 20 as its price went up by 3.19%. Currently, it is trading for $4.42.
• Ethereum (ETH) happens to be the biggest loser, with a 9.88% drop in asset price.
• Dash (DASH) is the second biggest loser with a 9.52% drop in value. It is currently priced at $135.06.

 

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