Crypto Markets Rally as Bitcoin Reclaims $30,000 Once Again

Crypto markets rallied on Monday, led by prominent altcoin Cardano, while major US stock exchanges were closed to honor Memorial Day.

Cardano (ADA) outstripped the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market value (sans stablecoins, wrapped bitcoin and lido staked ether) with a 12% gain. ADA started the day worth $0.4774; it was changing hands for $0.534 by midday ET.

Every other top 10 digital asset was also in the green, at least for today. Ether (ETH) and rival avalanche (AVAX) were up 6% at press time while bitcoin (BTC) had added 4.5%, claiming $30,000 for the first time in a week. 

Dogecoin (DOGE) rose nearly 4% as Solana (SOL), polkadot (DOT), binance coin (BNB) and XRP clinched about 3%.

On the other hand, dominance of leading stablecoins Tether and Circle’s USD Coin fell 4%. Bitcoin dominance stayed flat while ether’s increased by 1.6%.

US markets such as the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq were indeed shuttered for the day but European benchmark indices improved alongside crypto.

Germany’s DAX rose 0.8%; the Europe-wide Euronext 100 popped 0.7% while the FTSE 100 added 0.2%.

Overall, crypto markets are now worth 4.5% more than on Sunday, having gained $53 billion, according to TradingView’s total crypto index, which currently prices all digital assets at nearly $1.26 trillion.

That’s still 43% lower than crypto’s collective capitalization recorded at the start of the year, when digital assets were altogether valued at $2.19 trillion. It’s also 25% below crypto’s market value at the start of May.

So, while today’s gains are surely welcome to crypto investors, not everything is rosy when zooming out. 

Just three of the top 10 cryptocurrencies – TRX, DOT and BTC – are positive over the past week, and all by less than 5%. AVAX and SOL have performed the worst, over the past week, throughout May and in 2022, having respectively shed 53% and 46% in the month-to-date and 75% since January 1.

And despite today’s rallies across crypto, TRX is still the best performing top cryptocurrency in 2022. Not only is TRX up 30% in May while every other top 10 token is down, it’s also the only one to increase in price over the year-to-date, having added nearly 9%.

All the other top 10 cryptocurrencies (again, excluding stablecoins, wrapped ether, and lido staked eth) have on average collapsed 48% so far in 2022.

Get the day’s top crypto news and insights delivered to your inbox every evening. Subscribe to Blockworks’ free newsletter now.