Crypto news

The crypto currency Bitcoin continued moving upwards on Tuesday with a trajectory that seems quite unstoppable and reached $12,000 for the first time, powering up to almost $12,500 at one point after then settling around the $12,200 mark. This upward trajectory continued notwithstanding some negative news in the regulation market with some billionaire investors warning of the possibilities of a financial bubble. In the meantime other crypto currencies fell slightly flat with some even retreating substantially. Ripple fell by about 4% while Dash and Ethereum posted slightly less disappointing falls of between 1 and 2%. Ethereum Classic was also down by about % while Litecoin remained stable. The cryptocurrency markets made another advance on Tuesday, fueled by continued bullishness over the impending launch of regulated bitcoin Futures contracts on Sunday. Buoyed by this factor, the bitcoin price rose within striking distance of the $12,000 milestone, and the flagship cryptocurrency's market cap came within a hair's breadth of the $200 billion marker. Meanwhile, altcoins reaped the gains of a bullish market, and the number of cryptocurrencies with billion-dollar valuations swelled to a new all-time high of nineteen. Altogether, cryptocurrencies added nearly $15 billion to their already swelling combined market cap. At present, the total cryptocurrency market cap is $354.3 billion, representing a single-day increase of four percent. Bitcoin Price Eyes $12,000 Over the weekend, bitcoin "died" for the 200th time, but, to the ire of bears across the globe, the most prominent cryptocurrency refuses to acknowledge its supposed demise. The bitcoin price reached a new all-time high on Tuesday at approximately 9:00 UTC, when it briefly rose to $11,931. However, bitcoin was not quite able to extend across the $12,000 mark - a feat which would have raised its total valuation past $200 billion for the first time - and it has since made a minor pullback to $11,887 and a $198.8 billion market cap. Ethereum Price Trades Sideways The launch of bitcoin futures is expected to have a positive effect on ethereum - the president of derivatives exchange Cboe has hinted that his exchange may soon add bitcoin cash and ethereum futures - but the ethereum price did not receive a bump upon learning that bitcoin futures would launch sooner than had generally been believed. Instead, the ethereum price traded sideways, remaining at $462. Ethereum maintains a market cap of $44.5 billion. Billion-Dollar Club Hits New All-Time High The altcoin markets, on the other hand, were generally characterized by positive movement, and the number of cryptocurrencies with billion-dollar valuations swelled to a new all-time high. Inside the top 10, there were two cryptocurrencies that made movements worthy of note. IOTA, ranked fifth, continued its dramatic climb, rising 28 percent to crack the $3 mark for the first time. IOTA is now less than $1.2 billion behind ripple in terms of total market cap. Monero, ranked ninth, made a similar move, leaping 23 percent to raise its price to $240 and its market cap to $3.7 billion. Outside of the top 10, the majority of cryptocurrencies posted moderate increases of at least five percent. As a result, three cryptocurrencies - Lisk, OmiseGO, and Qtum- edged across the $1 billion market cap threshold, bringing the total number of "crypto unicorns" to a new all-time high of 19. LTC/USD Price Levels The Litecoin-dollar exchange rate slipped on Tuesday, but continued to trade near record highs. At press time, prices were down 1% at $100.75 for a total market cap of $5.5 billion. Trade volumes reached $338 million over the past 24 hours, which is equivalent to roughly 29,290 bitcoin. That's well below the nearly $636 million in turnover witnessed Dec. 2. Nearly 20% of transactions on Tuesday occurred on the GDAX platform. The OKEx exchange accounted for roughly 15% of the volume. Crypto juggernauts Bitfinex and Bithumb turned over between 8% and 10% each. Litecoin's Bright Future LTC is enjoying tremendous support from the broader cryptocurrency community. Its gains have been partly attributable to bitcoin's meteoric rise. As a less expensive, more readily available cryptocurrency, Litecoin is widely considered to be the silver to bitcoin's gold. This means both cryptocurrencies often trade in the same direction, despite vastly different price points. This makes perfect sense, given that Litecoine was created as a hard fork of the original bitcoin blockchain. One of the chief advantages Litecoin has over bitcoin is its focus on small transactions. The payment platform targets businesses that require a large volume of smaller transactions that need to be processed fairly quickly. Litecoin processes a block every 2.5 million, which is a fraction of bitcoin's 10-minute mark. Bitcoin's viability as a payment system has been brought into question by many within the cryptocurrency community. That largely explains persistent efforts to fork the cryptocurrency in favor of a scalable alternative. Litecoin is also considered one of the most attractive altcoins due to its inclusion on the Coinbase trading platform. By being listed on Coinbase, LTC joins elite company in bitcoin and Ethereum. Coinbase is the largest U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange and has more users than brokerage Charles Schwab. Coinbase currently has more than 13.3 million users, according to industry data. That includes 300,000 users in the last week of November. By comparison, Schwab reported 10.6 million active accounts for October.