Crypto Today: Bitcoin recovers toward $14K, Ethereum eases off record highs

Bitcoin retraces small part of recent losses on Tuesday.
Ethereum fails to hold above $900, still up more than 15% on the day.
Stellar up more than 30%.

Eren Sengezer FXStreet

The BTC/USD pair, which eased below the $12K on the first day of 2018, staged a modest recovery on Thursday and was last seen trading at $12,920, gaining 4% on the day, based on the latest available data on coinmarketcap.com. However, Bitcoin's rise today seems to be a technical correction of the recent sell-off and the most dominant cryptocurrency continues to lose market cap since its record-setting rally witnessed in early December.

Meanwhile, Ethereum hit a fresh record high a tad above the $900 mark on Tuesday but failed to preserve its bullish momentum. Nonetheless, as of writing, the ETH/USD pair was trading at $885 and was up nearly 16% on the day. Despite this upsurge, however, Ripple's total market capitalization surpassed Ethereum's on Tuesday. Right now, Ripple is the second biggest cryptocurrency with a total market cap of $93 billion as investors continue to show high interest amid fast and cheap transactions.

While all the cryptocurrencies in the top ten by market cap was able to record gains on Tuesday, one cryptocurrency stood out. Stellar, the eighth biggest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $10.4 billion, was up 33.6% as of writing. "Stellar operates a network with the blockchain technology behind bitcoin. But unlike the popular digital currency, Stellar's transactions settle in 2 to 5 seconds and allows users to quickly exchange government-backed currencies, such as turning U.S. dollars into euros, according to its website. Stellar's coins are officially called lumens, or XLM," CNBC's Evelyn Cheng explained in a recent article.

Author

Eren Sengezer

FXStreet

As an economist at heart, Eren Sengezer specializes in the assessment of the short-term and long-term impacts of macroeconomic data, central bank policies and political developments on financial assets.

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