Crypto Currencies Post Massive Recovery

It was finally an excellent Friday for crypto currency investors who have been holding on to their investments for the past few torrid weeks that saw exceptional rises in currencies such as Ripple and Ethereum Classic which both jumped by well over 20% at one point. At press time Ripple was over the psychologically significant $0.90 while ETC was at around $24.50, an incredible jump of almost 50% from its lows of a few days ago.

These huge increases in the prices of these two crypto currencies was not limited however. Ethereum, ETC's sister currency was also considerably up at press time and was trading at well over $865 or an increase of around 9%. Litecoin was also up considerably by about the same percentage to trade at well over $155 and at times was also threatening to break the $160 mark. It remains to be seen whether these gains will either be scaled back or consolidated on Friday night when the Asian markets open but the slew of good news and feel good factor emanating from the markets seem to indicate that a retraction might not be so great.

Of the crypto currencies outside the top ten, Dash performed quite well and once again regained the $600 mark with a 6% increase and looks good for another rally shortly where the price might even test the $700 levels. The major crypto currency Bitcoin had a slightly disappointing day when it rose only by about ^% but seems to be testing the $8500 level after having dropped well below the $8,000 mark during Asian trading times. However analysts point that this psychological level could have positioned Bitcoin for a breakout over the weekend where the price might also top the $9,000 mark and begin approaching five figures once gain after a number of weeks. After its spectacular rise yesterday where its price increased by 30% at one point, Bitcoin Cash seemed to tarde sideways with only minor losses of around 1% but still testing the $1300 level.

The cryptocurrency markets extended their recovery on Friday, adding $14 billion to inch their way back above the $400 billion threshold. This time, however, it was the Ripple price's turn to lead the rally, and the third-largest cryptocurrency posted a large-cap-best 21 percent increase. At present, the cryptocurrency market cap is valued at $413 billion, representing a 24-hour increase of about four percent.

The Bitcoin price ended the day on a sideways trajectory after recovering from sub-$8,000 dip that lasted for several hours. Bitcoin is now trading at $8,351 on Bitfinex, which translates into a $142 billion market cap. This temporary dip may have been partially-tied to concern that Binance - the world's highest-volume cryptocurrency exchange - had been hacked, as inaccurate rumors began to fly after the exchange went down on Wednesday evening and continued to remain offline on Thursday. The controversy was escalated when provocateur John McAfee insisted that he had information that the exchange had been hacked, although this was vehemently denied by Binance's founder and owner who took to Twitter to refute McCafee's claims. On Friday morning, though, Binance completed its system maintenance, which involved re-syncing its entire replica database, and trading resumed at approximately 10 am UTC.

Bitcoin Cash extended its rally by another seven percent, raising its price to $1,312 and market cap to $22.3 billion. Cardano, NEO, and Stellar, meanwhile, each saw their prices rise by about one percent. EOS and Litecoin performed slightly better, rising three percent and two percent, respectively, bringing their prices to current values of $8.60 and $149. However prices continued to increase throughout the day with Litecoin topping the $150 mark quite comfortably.

Of note, IOTA managed to rise back into the top 10 following an extended absence. It achieved this mark despite declining one percent for the day because NEM - the former occupant of the 10th spot on the market cap charts - endured a four percent pullback that dropped its market cap below $5 billion. Other currencies such as Tron also remained stagnant after the huge losses suffered in the past weeks.