Friday, August 24: crypto markets have seen notable growth today, with all but one of the top 40 cryptocurrencies by market cap solidly in the green, according to data from Coin360.
Market visualization from Coin360
Bitcoin (BTC) has seen solid growth, having surpassed the $6,600 price point, starting the day just over $6,400. The leading cryptocurrency is up around 3 percent over the past 24 hours, trading at $6,624 at press time.
August 22 Bitcoin plunged from above $6,700 to under the $6,400 price point, following news of new anti-crypto policies in China, as well as another series of application denials for several Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
According to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin and VeChain (VET) are the only two cryptocurrencies among top 20 coins by market cap that have seen some gains over the past 7 days, with Bitcoin up just 1.43 percent.
Bitcoin 7-day price chart. Source: Cointelegraph Bitcoin Price Index
The top altcoin Ethereum (ETH) is up about 2.7 percent today, trading at $280 at press time. Following a markable downward trend over the week, the second cryptocurrency by market cap has suffered a heavy-hitting 41 percent loss over the past 30 days.
Ethereum 30-day price chart. Source: Cointelegraph Ethereum Price Index
Total market cap is slightly up today, mostly holding above the $210 billion mark over the past 24 hours. After dropping to as low as $203 billion August 22, the capitalization of all cryptocurrencies has grown to $214.7 billion by press time.
Total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies, 7-day chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
Among the top 10 coins, EOS (EOS) and Monero (XMR) have seen the most significant growth over the past 24 hours, up 4.7 and 3.9 percent respectively.
Today’s solid upswing in the crypto markets comes following an announcement from the U.S. SEC that the Commission will review its August 22 decision to reject nine applications for listing Bitcoin ETFs.
Earlier today, CNBC's crypto market analyst Brian Kelly predicted that the first Bitcoin ETFs will start operating in February 2019. According to Kelly, the world is getting “incrementally closer” to the first Bitcoin ETF approval, pointing at the bullish “sentiment change,” despite the recent application rejections.