Investing.com - Prices of most of the top cryptocurrencies dipped on Wednesday morning in Asia, with XRP the only exception.
Bitcoin slid 1.21% to $8,661.9 by 11:46 PM ET (02:46 AM GMT), still not far from the high of $8,902.8 reached on Monday, its strongest level since May 2018.
After tumbling from record highs close to $20,000 reached in December 2017 the digital currency spent most of the first quarter of 2019 hovering below the $4,000 level before regaining momentum early last month.
Bitcoin’s gains have come against a background of a broad rally in riskier assets this year, amid signs of looser monetary policy from the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank. Its latest leg up has come as increasing questions have been raised about the stability of Chinese yuan, which is under pressure from U.S. trade measures that are slowing the economy down.
The rally has seen total crypto market cap increase to around $272 billion, of which Bitcoin accounts for around $154 billion.
Ethereum dropped 0.62% to $268.98 and Litecoin lost 2.19% to $113.25. XRP gained 2.46% to $0.44107.
The recent uptick in Bitcoin’s price promoted South Korea to hold a pan-governmental meeting aimed at closely monitoring the country’s cryptocurrency market. As Bitcoin tested $9,000 this week, local officials deemed the surge as a sign of a possibly overheating market.