Crypto Currencies Continue Slight Recovery

After weeks of daily lows and crashes in tandem, Thursday was a welcome return to different resuts in the crypto currency market. In the past weeks, we had seen the prices of all currencies such as Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Litecoin and Dash tumble in tandem but today there seems to have been a departure from that damaging scenario. In fact, Bitcoin Cash, the sister currency of Bitcoin leaped by over 30% at one point to trade at well over $1200 and at one point also approached the $1300 mark. While this is still a very long way away from its all-time high of $3,300, it is nevertheless encouraging and shows that this currency has considerable resilience and could once again hit these highs in the not too distant future.

Bitcoin had a very dull day on the whole although it clung to its $8,100-8,500 level although it continued losing ground with minuscule increases over the day. After a positive day on Wednesday where the price approached and exceeded $850, the second largest crypto currency by market cap, Ethereum saw its price drop to below $800 and was trading at around $780-790 at press time. Litecoin was also down to around $140 but seems to be well supported at this level whilst Ethereum Classic on the other hand showed good increases and was trading at above the $20 mark - a position that had not been seen for a number of days.

The cryptocurrency markets continued to advance on Thursday, but today's returns were far more muted than the euphoric leap that greeted investors on Wednesday. The rally was largely concentrated among large-cap coins, and the Bitcoin Cash price posted far-and-away the top gains of any top-tier cryptocurrency. Altogether, the cryptocurrency market cap added approximately $11 billion, enabling it to once again climb past the $400 billion barrier.

It's not immediately clear what's behind today's dramatic Bitcoin Cash price rally. Decentralized marketplace OpenBazaar recently added support for BCH, but this was not a surprise and should not have had such a great impact on the coin's price. That said, Bitcoin Cash did post the worst performance among top-10 cryptocurrencies on Wednesday, making it plausible that the coin is just now catching the recovery's tailwinds. Still there is a lot of potential in this currency and the market could be poised for further gains in the near future.

Fifth-ranked Cardano, meanwhile, sunk back in the red with a three percent decrease to $0.36. EOS performed slightly better but still declined by two percent. Litecoin endured a three percent pullback that forced its price back below $150, while NEO declined by two percent to $114. Stellar and NEM rounded out the top 10 with declines of four percent and two percent, respectively, bringing the two tokens to present values of $0.36 and $0.57. These coins showed massive increases on Wednesday but this correction has seen them slump slightly in value.

Another interesting development that could see a corresponding rise in the price of crypto currencies was revealed today at the European Parliament. The president of the European Central Bank has publicly stated that European banks could hold positions in bitcoin after developments such as Bitcoin futures contracts listings by US exchanges.

While delivering the opening statement and closing remarks at a European Parliament meeting this week, European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi weighed in on the topic of cryptocurrencies referencing their discussions by other speakers during the meeting. The ECB chief revealed the authority hadn't observed any current trend of European banks holding cryptocurrencies. More pointedly, financial institutions in the European Union "are showing a limited appetite for digital currencies like Bitcoin" he said, adding this is currently the case despite a heightened public interest and appetite for cryptocurrencies.

That trend could change with the advent of cryptocurrencies permeating into mainstream finance, the central banker admitted. So this seems to legitimize the crypto currency market since all the talk about regulation is still not having any detrimental effect on the prices of the major crypto currency players.