Cryptocurrencies’ market cap breaks $200 billion barrier

With Bitcoin’s new historic prices, the market value and demand is still lunging upward.
This past week has been a historic for Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency reached unprecedented heights as the total cryptocurrency market cap bypassed the $200 billion mark for the first time since its inception. While the total cryptocurrency market cap, nested just below $190 billion, the prices quickly moved upwards on Friday morning. By Friday afternoon, the total market cap stood at a staggering $201.9 billion.

Bitcoin as been a very popular cryptocurrency due to its ever-increasing prices. In the last week, the cryptocurrency managed to reach both the $6,500 and $7,500 mark. By Friday, the cryptocurrency was experiencing a record high of $7,350. A subsequent crash has halted the rising prices. Since the crash, the price slowly and steadily recuperated to a price of $7,461. At the time of writing this article, Bitcoin's value is between $7,300 and $7,400. This means that the cryptocurrency experienced a growth rate of 25% in the last week alone, with a current market cap that stands at $122 billion.

The record-breaking growth rates are thought to have been caused by the announcement made by the trading facilitator, CME Group, in which they stated that they intend to list Bitcoin futures in their system. This indicated an acceptance of the cryptocurrency by mainstream financial institutions, and immediately drove prices upwards. In an interview with CNN, the CEO of Latium, David Johnson, stated his belief that CME Group’s announcement is the first step towards giving Bitcoin legal tender status. Johnson added that the Bitcoin futures feature will allow institutional investors to enter the market with significantly less risk. This will, in turn, stimulate the market. Johnson concluded by stating that Bitcoin will soon become widely accepted as eagerly as fiat currencies.

However, Bitcoin's latest success has not contributed to the growth of other cryptocurrencies. Several cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum, have been negatively affected by Bitcoin’s growth. As Bitcoin prices rose, the Ethereum price dipped below $300 earlier this week. While the price has slightly recovered since then, it still floats just below $300. Currently, Ethereum has a total market cap of $28.3 billion. Similarly, other altcoins have been negatively impacted by Bitcoins growth. Bitcoin’s prices seem to have convinced most investors to place their money towards Bitcoin and not with any of the other available altcoin markets. However, Friday proved a happy day  as all cryptocurrencies across the board experienced growth in different percentages.

Bitcoin Cash, also flourished this last week as the price went up as far as $648, the highest price since September. Currently, the Bitcoin Cash market cap stands at a total of $10.9 billion.

The world's fourth-largest cryptocurrency, Ripple, also grew with just over 7% in the last week. Currently, the market cap stands at $8 billion. In addition, Litecoin and bitconnect rose with 4%. NEO grew with 6%, and most other cryptocurrencies grew with an average of 2%.