Bitcoin has been surging over the past few weeks, rising above significant resistance at $7,000 and $8,000. The cryptocurrency surge has continued as Bitcoin climbed further higher by 12% over the past 24 hours to reach a price of around $7,777. This price jump has now allowed Bitcoin to increase by a total of 104% YTD from the 2019 opening price.
Looking at the price chart above, we can see that Bitcoin started the year at a low around $3,848 but has since managed to climb by over 100% to a high close to $8,000. We can see that the real momentum started to spring during early April 2019, when price action managed to jump above $4,000 and continue high above $5,000 in a very short timeframe.
Bitcoin has now seen a 112% price increase over the past 90 trading days alone. However, neither Ethereum nor Ripple have been keeping pace with Bitcoin’s increasing prices. Over the past 7 days, Bitcoin has seen a 35% price hike, whereas Ethereum has seen a 16% increase and Ripple just an 8.16% increase.
Extending the timeframe to the past 90 trading days, we can see that Ethereum has managed to enjoy a 67% price increase, but Ripple has only seen a small 6% increase in the same period.
The main reason that Ethereum and Ripple are not increasing at the same rate that Bitcoin is due to the fact that both cryptocurrencies are falling heavily against Bitcoin itself. So as Bitcoin continues to increase in US Dollar prices, both Ethereum and Ripple are depreciating against Bitcoin, leading to the rate of increase against Bitcoin to be substantially lower.
The following chart for Ripple against Bitcoin clearly demonstrates how badly Ripple has been performing this year;
We can see that Ripple started the year close to 10,000 SATS per XRP. As the year progressed, the market dropped heavily and is now currently trading close toward the 4,000 SAT level. However, if we look further back in time, we can see that the 4,000 SAT region acted as strong support for the XRP/BTC market during September 2018, and therefore it should provide strong support moving forward.
IF XRP/BTC can hold the support at 4,000 SATS and start to reverse, we may see the Ripple market increase rapidly as it follows in Bitcoin’s steps and starts to catch up on some of the gains it has recently missed out on.
Similarly, the chart below demonstrates how badly Ethereum has been performing against Bitcoin:
We can see that Ethereum started the year at above 0.04 BTC per ETH. However, as the year progressed, Ethereum continued to fall further against Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency has now recently reached the 0.0250 BTC level, where strong support is expected. This level had provided strong support during December and should provide support moving forward.
Conclusion
Both Ethereum and Ripple have been declining heavily against Bitcoin at different paces. This is the main reason as to why neither has been increasing at the same pace as Bitcoin. However, this all may be about to change if both ETH and BTC can hold the incoming support levels.
If Ethereum and Ripple can hold their respective support levels against Bitcoin, we could see both cryptocurrencies reverse and start to claim some of the potential gains they had previously missed out upon.
