Investing.com – Bitcoin fell on Wednesday as investors continued to opt for caution amid fears over a regulatory crackdown in the industry, while Stellar's Lumens (XLM) rose sharply amid signs of growing interest in the cryptocurrency.
The total cryptocurrency market cap continued to edge higher, indicating an influx of new money into the market, but crypto-investors appeared reluctant to return in a meaningful way amid uncertainty in the industry as numerous countries were reportedly preparing plans to regulate bitcoin.
The total cryptocurrency market cap rose roughly 15% to $549 billion from a low of around $478 billion last week.
Despite the threat of regulation, bitcoin appears to be winning much needed support after Adena Friedman, the CEO of the Nasdaq stock exchanged confirmed Tuesday that the index is considering adding a bitcoin futures product.
The launch of futures trading of bitcoin by both the CBOE and CME in late December has not had the impact many bitcoin enthusiast had anticipated as there is very little to suggest that institutional investors have flocked to the popular digital currency.
Bitcoin, fell 0.71% to $11,111 after falling below $10,000 in Tuesday’s session.
With regulatory efforts mainly focused on bitcoin, however, small cap coins have garnered investor attention in recent days as Stellar's lumens rose 14%, taking seven-day gains to nearly 40%, to surpass Litecoin as the sixth largest coin by market cap. The rise in stellar comes as online payments company Stripe hinted at the prospect of adding support for the cryptocurrency after ditching bitcoin amid concerns over its slow transaction rates and high fees.
"We may add support for Stellar (to which we provided seed funding) if substantive use continues to grow," said Stripe product manager Tom Karlo in a blog post.
Ripple XRP rose 0.07% to $1.3375 well below its all-time high of $3.28 on the poloniex exchange. While Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, rose 3.81% to $1,028.40.