Bitcoin ended July trading at US$23,737 for a monthly gain of nearly 24% — its highest since October last year when it rose 40%. Ethereum gained about 60% in July.
See related article: Bitcoin, Ether rally continues in Friday afternoon trading in Asia
Fast facts
- Bitcoin fell about 1% on Monday morning in Asia, with Bitcoin trading at US$23,398 as of 12:30 p.m. HKT, while Ethereum fell about 0.4% to US$1,693, according to CoinMarketCap.
- Both cryptocurrencies were little changed over the weekend, with most other major tokens largely following the same trajectory, though XRP briefly gained 10% on Sunday before retreating to change hands at US$0.38 on Monday in Asia.
- Polkadot, which sits just outside CoinMarketCap’s top 10, gained over 10% early Monday morning to reach its highest price in over a month before retreating slightly to US$8.64.
- Ethereum Classic (ETC), the network from which the current Ethereum network is hardforked, maintained most of the roughly 50% gains it made late last week where its price of US$44.97 was the highest since early January.
- Though it retreated close to 6% on Monday morning to US$36.63, interest remains in the network ahead of Ethereum’s transition to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism as part of “The Merge.”
- This transition will render equipment currently used to mine the proof-of-work Ethereum network largely useless and so miners may be looking to ETC as an alternative use for this equipment.
See related article: Crypto continues tear while Vitalik Buterin says Eth2 ‘not priced in’