In the third quarter of 2017, bitcoin leads the way as the best performing cryptocurrency in the market, showing an impressive 74% gain during the last three months. This comes despite the mega-rally in the newer cryptocurrencies that were released during the start of the year. Bitcoin is one of the top five cryptocurrencies in the market by market capitalization. Bitcoin cash, the new digital currency formed after the “fork” of bitcoin is not included in this quarter, as it was not trading.
In the third quarter, the newer cryptocurrencies were not as successful as they were in the start of the year. The following list provides the details of market capitalization of some famous cryptocurrencies.
- Ethereum rose around 8% from $282.32 to $302.04
- Ripple declined 26.9% and fell from $0.26 to $0.19
- Litecoin rose 36.5% from $40.1 to $55.1
The decline in most of the altcoins can be the result of investor speculation that altcoins were in a bubble and could collapse. Therefore, investors came back to bitcoin, which was seen as a more reliable source of money. This was in sharp contrast to the quarter starting in June, where investors invested heavily in alt-coins. Ethereum, the main player, rose 500% and hit an all-time high.
Bitcoin has had an eventful last couple of months, with Chinese authorities cracking down on the currency. Bitcoin forked to form a new coin, which is now known as bitcoin cash. On the other hand, the Japanese authorities introduced regulations that supported cryptocurrencies and legalized a few exchanges.
The fork created uncertainty in the market about bitcoin, which was eventually removed. A few analysts warn of turbulent times ahead and believe that the cryptocurrency is unstable. The huge investment in the second quarter seemed to have a positive impact on bitcoin, as investors eventually came back to it in the September quarter. While talking to CNBC, Charlie Hayter, the CEO of industry analysis website CryptoCompare, said, "There was risk in the altcoins, people thought they were overvalued and cycled back into bitcoin as a more sensible store of value."
Impressive amounts of investment were observed in the last quarter in the alt-coins, as investors raised the value of cryptocurrencies by millions. For example, Dash, which is valued at $2.3 billion, was up by almost 82%.