The crypto markets have surged to reclaim much of their recent losses, as the prophesized end-of-year rally materializes. Although the market surge is certainly welcome to investors who have been hit with seemingly constant losses over the past several weeks and months, the markets still have a long way to go before they are anywhere near their 2018 highs.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading up nearly 3% at its current price of $4,100. Although Bitcoin is trading up slightly and has been able to stabilize above $4,000, it is the altcoin markets that have accounted for much of the market’s recent gains.
Bitcoin’s market dominance has dropped after the recent rally, and is currently at just over 50%, down from recent highs of nearly 55%.
Crypto Markets Could Dominate 2019 As Best Performing Asset Class
Assuming that the current rally continues for the coming weeks, the new year may be off to a great start which could set the tone for the rest of 2019. One popular cryptocurrency fund manager, Travis Kling, echoed this sentiment, explaining in a recent tweet that he believes that crypto will be the best performing asset of 2019.
“Crypto has never existed during a bear market in traditional assets. BTC was birthed at the very beginning of the largest monetary experiment ever- globally coordinated QE. Ending QE is causing pain There is a significant chance Crypto is the best performing asset class in 2019,” he said, referencing “QE” which refers to Quantitative Easing.
Kling’s comments regarding crypto’s possible performance in 2019 come amidst growing instability in the traditional equities markets, which has been driven by trade tensions between the US and China, increasing interest rates from the Federal Reserves, and “Brexit” concerns in Europe.
Altcoins Surge, Led by Ethereum
The market’s recent rally has been mostly driven by altcoins, many of which are trading up over 10%.
At the time of writing, Ethereum is one of the best performing altcoins, and is trading up 15% at its current price of $147. ETH’s rally may be the result of two factors: primarily the rally in the general markets, and the upcoming Constantinople fork.
Alex Krüger, a popular economist on Twitter, expressed his thoughts on how the Constantinople fork could affect Ethereum’s price in the long-term, saying:
“Ethereum’s Constantinople fork is coming on block 7080000, around January 16, 2019. Constantinople will reduce the block rewards from 3 to 2, decreasing new $ETH supply accordingly… On the long run, this is decidedly bullish.”
Behind Ethereum, XRP is the second-best performing altcoin, and is trading up 13.4% at its current price of $0.418. XRP is down from its daily highs of nearly $0.45 but is up significantly from its daily lows of $0.366.
Stellar (XLM) is also rallying today and is trading up 8.4% at its current price of $0.135 and is up from its 7-day lows of $0.105.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
