Bitcoin surges over $10,000

Crypto currencies staged a remarkable recovery on Monday with many of the legacy coins making considerable advances although some were still posting quite modest increases. Legacy Bitcoin was perhaps the best performer where it gained over 10% to trade at around $10,500 at press time on Tuesday morning. The established currency seems to be well established at this level and a push towards the $11,000 mark is not being seen as untoward in the current scenario.

Bitcoin Cash also saw a considerable uptrend rising by as much as 8% to trade at the $1250 mark and a push towards the $1300-1400 mark is not excluded. The forked currency which has been active since August has demonstrated remarkable staying power although it is still considerably far away from its record highs of $4000 registered in December although analysts predict a considerable jump in the not too distant future as we move out of the bear market which also appears to be nearing its end.

Of the main currencies by market cap, Ethereum also moved ahead albeit at a slower pace and was trading at around $880 on Tuesday morning with a push towards the $900 mark not being excluded. The currency founded by Russian entrepreneur Vitaly Buterin seems to be growing exponentially of late after having declined considerably to well below the $600 mark at one point - a full 100% below its all-time high of $1300 registered in December 2017. Its sister currency Ethereum Classic was also up by around 5% overall with the price now pushing upward of $36 and a push towards the $40 mark is expected by analysts.

Yet again the currency which disappointed most in the surge ahead has been XRP or Ripple which registered almost negligible gains of around 2% which saw the coin touch the $0.95 mark - still a far cry from the $1 mark where the price would be expected to begin climbing upward. Litecoin also registered a small increase and finally broke the $220 mark although even here growth was quite sluggish and there does not appear to be much momentum to push further forward at least in the short term.

Of the currencies with smaller market cap, it appears that Neo has made the biggest advances and it is now trading at well over the $140 mark - an increase of well over 20%. It appears that Neo has broken resistance at $130 and this can only mean an upswing in the price in the short to medium term. XLM had a rather tepid increase but was still around 10% up when compared to Sunday. Dash also powered ahead and was once again trading at well above the $600 mark indicating that it might make a push for $700 soon.

Over the past few weeks, Ether has tended to follow the price trend of bitcoin throughout the recovery period from its monthly lows. But, in some periods, Ether moved in a divergent path from bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Last week, when bitcoin spiked in value to $12,000, Ether and ERC 20 tokens or ICO tokens performed poorly. This week, Ether has performed better than bitcoin, moving in a different direction to the most dominant cryptocurrency in the market.

This week, bitcoin has struggled to remain above the $10,000 mark, which many analysts have described as the psychological threshold for traders. It is difficult to evaluate the short-term trend of bitcoin during this period in which bitcoin, the most liquid and dominant cryptocurrency in the market, is experiencing huge upswings and declines on a daily basis.

Merely one week ago, the price of bitcoin doubled from its yearly low at $6,100, breaching the $12,000 mark. In some regions like South Korea, the price of bitcoin briefly surpassed the $13,000 mark. As of today, the price of bitcoin remains below $9,600, demonstrating little signs of recovery back to the $12,000 level in the short-term, due to its low volumes. The premiums might reappear again since Bitcoin's price is now close to the $11,000 mark and there appears to be another strong push for it to go forward.

Tether, a cryptocurrency that is backed by the US dollar at a 1:1 ratio, is an important indicator of the short-term performance of the cryptocurrency market. Many investors on major cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance and Bitfinex utilize Tether to hedge the value of cryptocurrencies during a volatile period, especially when the market begins to fall.

As of February 26, the daily trading volume of Tether is $1.975 billion, making it the second most liquid cryptocurrency behind bitcoin. The large daily trading volume of Tether indicates that many traders are uncertain about the short-term trend of major cryptocurrencies, and are hedging the value of cryptocurrencies in the market to the US dollar.