Bitcoin has done it again, hitting a new 2019 high above $12,000 before retracing slightly.
At 21:00 UTC on June 25, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization broke from sideways trading after being held beneath $11,400 for over 11 hours.
However, perhaps most notable is the fact that bitcoin also crossed above 60 percent market dominance for the first time in over 17 months.
A metric maintained by data provider CoinMarketCap, the Bitcoin Dominance Index shows bitcoin continues to gain altitude at a time when broader confidence in the crypto market, now nearly $350 billion, has yet to return.
The move to fresh 2019 highs is further a welcome sight for the bulls who continue to enjoy the incredible 230 percent gains experienced from the beginning of this year.
Notably, the price rally was also accompanied by an uptick in the 24-hour trading volume as an increase of $13.8 billion was added overall, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
However, its “Real 10” volume – a metric that takes into account trading volume from exchanges reporting honest volume figures as identified in a report by Bitwise Asset Management, is delivering more sober results, currently standing up $4.09 billion, according to Messari.io.
Still, bitcoin’s dominance may be the broader story.
At press time, bitcoin’s market capitalization now records $202.8 billion, which is about $67.1 million more than the market capitalization of every other cryptocurrency combined – which currently stands at $135.7 billion.
Meanwhile, other highly ranked cryptocurrencies like NEO, Ether (ETH) and Ontology (ONT) have gained between 2 to 10 percent value on a 24-hour basis, according to CoinMarketCap.
Eyes are now firmly set on bitcoin’s new target along the $12,0000 psychological price tag, last seen 17 months ago on Jan 28, 2018, signaling a very strong upward toward its all-time high near $20,000.
Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency at the time of writing.
Bitcoin image via Shutterstock; Charts via CoinMarketCap