It certainly has been a much-needed positive day of trade for the cryptocurrency market.
In afternoon trade the value of the market has risen almost 5% since this morning to a total of US$272.5 billion according to Coin Market Cap.
The biggest contributor to the market's overall gain has of course being crypto behemoth Bitcoin (BTC). The BTC price has risen 5% over the last 24 hours to US$7,307.74 per coin, giving it an improved market capitalisation of US$123.9 billion.
Traders appear to have returned to bitcoin today after the cryptocurrency survived the dreaded "death cross" technical indicator.
A death cross occurs when there is a bearish crossover between the 50-day moving average and the 200-day moving average. Some analysts had predicted that this bearish indicator would send the bitcoin price on a path to sub-US$1,000 in a hurry.
Pleasingly for traders, a death cross did occur for the bitcoin price over the weekend, but traders have just shrugged it off.
As the rest of the market tends to move with the bitcoin price, this has also been a big lift for the its fellow altcoins.
The best performers in the top ten on Tuesday afternoon are Ripple (XRP), EOS (EOS), Stellar Lumens (XLM), and Cardano (ADA). Each of these altcoins is up no less than 5% at the time of writing, with Stellar Lumens the best performer with its 11.5% push higher.
Traders have been fighting to get hold of XLM after US tech giant IBM launched a blockchain starter plan into beta that will allow startups to build blockchain products on the cheap. IBM also recently confirmed that Stellar's technology is now live on the IBM blockchain.
Some traders appear to believe this legitimises Stellar's offering and puts it in a strong position to deliver on its goal of developing a new global financial system. I think Stellar is one to watch.
