The Bitcoin bull continues to charge as the price soars to over $14k. The run-up over the past few months has been fueled by reports of Bitcoin futures trading coming to US exchanges, but the most recent bump comes after an exciting announcement about the progress of the Lightning Network.
Record Prices and Market Capitalization
Bitcoin has destroyed all-time high after all-time high in the past months, currently topping out at a cool $14,059 at the time of writing according to CoinMarketCap. It is posting almost a 20% gain in just twenty-four hours, which is an insane increase even relative to the huge price swings we see on a regular basis in the crypto-community. Trade volume is also hitting record levels, with just under $12 billion in trade volume across top exchanges.
Another statistic of note is the rising level of Bitcoin market cap dominance across the entire digital currency market. In Q2 2017 we saw an unprecedented altcoin bull run that brought Bitcoin’s dominance down below 40% of the total crypto-market cap. It has been crawling its way back ever since, to just under 50% at the beginning of September. The last few months have seen volatility in that percentage, but with the run-up the last few days, Bitcoin has cemented itself back at 60% of the total cryptocurrency market cap. This also comes despite massive gains from other competing coins which have garnered their own serious market caps.
Advancement of Lightning Network
The most likely reason for this sudden jump in price is the recent announcement of a successful Lightning Network (LN) test on the main Bitcoin network. The LN aims to solve a big problem facing Bitcoin and all digital currencies right now; scaling. The LN aims to move a bulk of the transactions off chain via payment channels, which will take a lot of pressure off the main blockchain and bring lower fees to all Bitcoin users. The code for the network has been in development for well over a year now, and this test is the next step toward a working implementation of LN for consumer and merchant use.
Are you making some crazy gains from this bull market? Where do you think the price will go from here? Let us know in the comments below!
Images courtesy of CoinBase, Shutterstock
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