Bitcoin (BTC) maintained volatility on December 23, as a drop to $ 22,800 triggered a lightning-fast rally towards the classic resistance of $ 24,000.
BTC dominance reaches its highest level since late 2019
Data from Cointelegraph Markets, Coin360 and TradingView tracked BTC / USD as factors such as panic among XRP traders left conditions volatile.
At press time, the pair was hovering around $ 23,700 after briefly breaking above sell levels at $ 24,000. It all happened in the same hours which saw Bitcoin go from current levels to $ 22,800 in a matter of minutes and back again.
With volatility being clearly evident, attention turned to the outlook for altcoins as Ripple’s problems propelled BTC’s dominance to year-long highs.
“Historically, we created a high level structure in December, after which we had an excellent first quarter for altcoins,” Michaël van de Poppe, analyst at Cointelegraph Markets commented to Twitter followers on the Bitcoin dominance action.
Altcoins are floundering in another trying December
Meanwhile, the largest holder of XRP, Ripple, faces a new lawsuit from US regulators over potential sales of unlicensed securities. If the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wins its case, analysts fear that XRP trading will in fact be destroyed due to legal ramifications.
As Van de Poppe hinted, Bitcoin’s advance came at the expense of altcoins more broadly, with various top ten tokens recording daily losses. The largest altcoin, Ether (ETH), was stable that day at $ 611.
Earlier today, Cointelegraph noted that a major storage effort by institutional giant Grayscale failed to support market sentiment after the company added $ 285 million in BTC to its assets under management on Tuesday.
