Bitcoin and Ethereum fall amid profit taking
Investing.com – Prices of both bitcoin and ethereum sank on Monday, as investors appeared to take profit on the recent rally that has seen both cryptocurrencies touch record highs.
On the U.S.-based GDAX exchange, BTC/USD fell to $2,288.1, down $192.5 or 7.76%.
Other big exchanges such as Poloniex, Bitfinex and BitStamp also showed the cryptocurrency trading around the $2,200-level.
Bitcoin has struggled to recover after falling from its peak of $3,000 earlier in June, however, the digital currency is up more 150% for the year.
Fresh off its weekly first loss in three weeks, Ether, a currency transacted through the Ethereum platform, lost 21.63% to $214.70.
Ethereum’s move lower comes amid worries that high demand for ethereum-based projects could overloaded the network, causing flash crashes to occur more frequently.
Some digital currency investors. however, downplayed last week’s flash crash, which saw Ehtereum plunge from $300 to 10 cents on Coinbase’s GDAX exchange, as a reason for the selloff and remained confident about the future prospect of cryptocurrencies.
"My gut says we are headed for a selloff in the crypto sector," Digital currency investor Fred Wilson said in a blog post, adding that he remains optimistic about the future of cryptocurrencies over the next five to 10 years.
At current prices, Ethereum's market cap has dropped to around $24 billion, way below that of Bitcoin's nearly $40 billion, dashing investor hopes that Ethereum would be the alternative cryptocurrency that usurps bitcoin as the largest and best capitalized blockchain – a phenomenon referred to as “the flippening”.
Ethereum’s popularity has soared in a short space of time and boasts large corporate backers such as JPMorgan and Microsoft that share investors’ belief that ethereum empowers its users to “codify, decentralize, secure and trade just about anything.”
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