The price of Litecoin popped more than 11% Tuesday after CNBC contributor and BKCM LLC CEO Brian Kelly announced he added the crypto coin to his portfolio.
Kelly said that he added LTC due to its technical lead over Bitcoin, and he predicted that price of Litecoin could climb to $500.
Meanwhile, the price of Bitcoin continued to decline. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has retreated since the introduction of Bitcoin futures trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
The price nearly touched $20,000 on Sunday night, but investors have since poured money into altcoins like Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash.
Below is a recap of the top cryptocurrency prices at 2:15 p.m. EST.
- Bitcoin: $18,358.00, -2.30%
- Ethereum: $848.12, +11.56%
- Bitcoin Cash: $2,500.32, +13.44%
- Ripple: $0.8126, +8.06%
- Litecoin: $361.21, +11.15%
Now that we know all of today's price movements, here's what has been moving these cryptocurrencies…
Cryptocurrency Markets Today
On Tuesday, the market capitalization of the global cryptocurrency sector hit $628 billion. Bitcoin comprises 49% of the global cryptocurrency market. This is the first time in a while that Bitcoin represented less than half of the total market.
Top performers from the largest 50 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization included Augur (up 101.45%), EOS (up 45.21%), Qtum (up 44.12%), Verge (up 41.28%), IOTA (up 27.62%), NEM (up 27.27%), RaiBlocks (up 25.43%), and DigiByte (up 23.68%).
The worst performers from the top 50 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization included Dogecoin (down -4.90%), Populous (down -4.42%), Byteball Bytes (down -4.38%), Nxt (down -4.17%), SALT (down -3.59%), Veritasseum (down -3.01%), and Bitconnect (down -2.51%).
Bitcoin Retreats Again Tuesday
Some of the downturn in Bitcoin prices came after South Korean Bitcoin exchange Youbit announced plans to declare bankruptcy following a massive cyberattack.
The exchange posted a message on its site stating that the external hack led to the theft of roughly "17 percent of total assets."
This was the second major hack on this exchange, and South Korean officials believe that it is North Korean hackers who are responsible.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Schiller also took some time to give his thoughts on Bitcoin.
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He said that the world's largest cryptocurrency is "exceptionally ambiguous."
"You just put an upper bound on [Bitcoin] with the value of the world's money supply. But that upper bound is awfully big. So it can be anywhere between zero and there," he said in an interview with CNBC.
Litecoin Up Nearly 10,000% in a Year
Litecoin is now up 9,863% on Coinbase over the last 12 months.
As noted above, optimism increased after a prominent CNBC analyst announced he had added Litecoin to his portfolio and touted its benefits compared to rival Bitcoin.
Still, it is worth noting that Litecoin founder Charlie Lee remains guarded about its incredible rise.
Recently, Lee took to the airwaves to express concern about the valuation and to explain that there is still a lot of work to do before any coin is widely adopted around the globe.
Token Sale Kicks Off for Overstock
The first phase of Overstock.com Inc.'s (Nasdaq: OSTK) jump into the initial coin offering market is underway.
CEO Patrick Byrne said that its tZERO subsidiary raised $100 million from investors during its first day of funding.
Roughly 2,000 accredited investors signed up to take part in the process.
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How do we buy into the crypto currency market? are they on the exchange?
how can i join and buy any cryptocurrebcies
I'd like to know the significance, if any, of Brian Kelly buying into Litecoin while he's also on the Advisory Board of the new tZero Overstock subsidiary that has just launched an ICO? Is the message to diversify in crypto, or am I missing something?
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Seems like a free for all out there right now. I've just been buying and holding the top 5 coins as well as speculating with a few of the altcoins worth pennies. It's a lot easier than trying to predict what will be the next hot coin.