The Ethereum (CRYTPO: ETH) share price is falling hard, down 8.5% over the past 24 hours.
Ethereum is currently worth US$1,752 (AU$2,400). That gives the world's second biggest crypto a market cap of US$2.04 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
With today's falls factored in, Ethereum has now lost 60% of its value since hitting all times highs of US$4,383 earlier this year on 12 May.
Despite those falls, the Ethereum price is still up an impressive 135% so far in 2021. That puts Bitcoin's (CRYTPO: BTC) 1.9% year-to-date gains to shame. Bitcoin, if you're wondering, is down 6.5% over the past 24 hours.
While most digital tokens are following the biggest players downhill, a select few are bucking the trend.
Dashing for a 7% daily gain as Ethereum tanks
The best performing crypto (among the top 100 by market cap) over the past 24 hours is Dash (CRYPTO: DASH). One Dash is currently worth US$124, up 7.0% since this time yesterday.
Dash – which stands for "digital cash" – is an ancient veteran amongst cryptocurrencies. It was launched way back in January 2014 as a fork of Litecoin (CRYPTO: LTC).
Today's gains put Dash back up to a 23% year-to-date rise. But, in a worthy reminder of the large sums of money that can be made on lost in the crypto world, Dash was trading for US$1,551 back on 20 December, 2017. That was right at the peak of the Bitcoin bubble.
So what exactly is Dash? For that answer we turn back to CoinMarketCap, which tells us:
Dash is an open-source blockchain and cryptocurrency focused on offering a fast, cheap global payments network that is decentralized in nature. According to the project's white paper, Dash seeks to improve upon Bitcoin (BTC) by providing stronger privacy and faster transactions.
If you're considering investing in crypto, whether that's Ethereum or some of the smaller tokens, bear in mind the extreme price volatility that comes along with them. If you have the cast iron stomach for that, and are investing money you can afford to lose, best of luck!
