Bitcoin has started the day posting minor gains. At press time, the largest cryptocurrency by market cap is trading at $8,700.07 (+0.07%), according to CoinMarketCap.
Chart of the USD/BTC trading pair from EXANTE
For its part, Ethereum has fallen to $188.2 (-0.36%), while XRP has dropped by 0.19% and is now trading at $0.197.
In anticipation of the Bitcoin halving scheduled for tomorrow, the trading activity on most crypto exchanges has increased significantly. For example, CME registered a record open interest on Thursday, Deribit recorded an all-time high in its options contracts, while spot platforms have reached volumes similar to those of 2017 over the past 3 weeks. When a large number of investors come to the market for a major event like this, everything seems to be ready for a sell-off.
Thus, when Bitcoin halved back in 2016, the price of the largest crypto in the market collapsed by more than 30%. It remains to be seen what happens this time. Will its price soar after the miners' rewards fall from 12.5 to 6.25 BTCs tomorrow? Will there be a drop like that of 2016? We'll soon find out. At the moment, the price of the reference crypto has suffered a sharp fall over the weekend.
According to CoinMarketCap’s ranking, 7 currencies on the top 10 are in red.
As for the market cap of all currencies listed in CoinMarketCap, it stays at $238,645,922,713.
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