Today’s cryptocurrency price action (Sunday 25th January 2015) is dominated by a surge in the Litecoin price, at one point rocketing up to a high of $2.87 on the BTC-e exchange, before gliding back down to just over $2 at the time of writing.
The Bitcoin price is also trading at the higher end of its recent range today, briefly breaking over the psychologically significant $250 barrier before dropping back down to the mid-240s. This rise in the value of BTC brings us almost back up to the level seen at the end of 2014, wiping out most of this year’s losses.
Reasons for the Litecoin Price Surge
With no breaking news in evidence, and taking into consideration the pattern of price action (a sudden spike showing first on BTC-e, with a rapid but partial retracement afterwards) it seems most likely that the surge was due to a large order, or a small group of orders, combined with too little liquidity on the market to absorb them. The effect of this may have been amplified by traders with short orders being forced to cover their position.
Looking beyond the top three, Sunday is shaping up to be a positive day for many alt coins with the coin market cap website looking like a see of green with the few red losers standing out in contrast. Some of the day’s big winners include:
- Peercoin – up 25% at the time of writing, having reached a high which took it’s market capitalization up to 10,785.
- Namecoin – Up over 17% at the time of writing, down from its peak of 0.00243108 btc.
- Bytecoin – Up 13% at the time of writing, to take its market cap just over the $2 million level and still in an upward trend.
Image credit: Screenshot from coinmarketcap.com
