Bitcoin (BTC) recently experienced a month-long price rally that came crashing to a halt at the beginning of August. At that point, the cryptocurrency fell by 15% in less than a week. Having briefly traded above US$8,000 at the end of July, a single bitcoin is worth just a touch over US$7100 at press time.
However, BTC's share of the entire cryptocurrency market is at its highest level this year and near where it was when the digital coin hit its highest price level in history.
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The dominance of Bitcoin – in relation to the percentage its market capitalization contributes to the entire value of the cryptocurrency market – stood at 47.6% today, according to data from
Einstein Exchange.
This is the highest level since December 20, 2017, just days after bitcoin hit its record high of US$19,783.21 on December 17. BTC's dominance has recovered since it hit its lowest level in January, but the price is still a long way off from the its December all-time high.
Still, Bitcoin has recovered from June when it fell below US$6,000. Part of this recovery has been due in part to positive news for the world's largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Regulators have focused more closely on the cryptocurrency space, and the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently classed BTC as a commodity rather than a security, giving a hint at how the authorities can eventually regulate it.
Meanwhile, there hasn't been any major news regarding
Ethereum (ETH) and
Ripple (XRP) – the second and third-largest cryptocurrencies by value respectively – that has moved the price for those digital coins.
