The crypto market had a positive weekend of trade and finished the period with solid gains being seen across the board.
This left the crypto market with a total value of approximately US$264.7 billion according to Coin Market Cap, up over 6% from late on Friday afternoon.
Here is the state of play in the industry on Monday morning:
The bitcoin (BTC) price had a strong weekend and bounced back from heavy declines at the end of the week. At present the bitcoin price is fetching US$7,007.80 per coin, up 5.4% from its Friday night low. The world's largest cryptocurrency has a market capitalisation of US$118.9 billion, equating to approximately 44.9% of the entire market. Bitcoin was given a lift after it emerged that billionaire investor George Soros is looking at trading cryptocurrencies. It is not known, however, whether Soros will be taking a long or short position.
The ethereum (ETH) price has pushed 8% higher since Friday evening to US$398.90 per token. This has improved ethereum's market capitalisation to just under US$39.4 billion.
The Ripple (XRP) price posted a gain of 6.4% during the period to 49.9 U.S. cents, giving the popular altcoin a market capitalisation of US$19.5 billion. Ripple was dealt a blow last week after reports indicated that Ripple Labs had tried and failed to buy their way into two popular exchanges. This has many traders doubting that XRP will ever be included on the popular Coinbase and Gemini exchanges.
The Bitcoin Cash (BCH) price has been one of the best performers since Friday evening with a 7.6% gain to US$656.53. This gives Bitcoin Cash a market capitalisation of US$11.2 billion.
The Litecoin (LTC) price has put on a gain of 3.5% during the period to US$117.58, leaving it with a market capitalisation of US$6.5 billion.
Outside the top five there have been strong gains for the likes of Cardano (ADA), Stellar Lumens (XLM), and NEO (NEO) since Friday evening.
While this was a strong weekend of trade for cryptocurrencies, I'm not convinced that sentiment is positive enough to take the market notably higher from here just yet. I would suggest investors stay clear of the industry for the time being.
