Investing.com - Cryptocurrencies scaled positions on Thursday, with Bitcoin holding above $8,100 , although Litecoin took a break from an extended rally, pulling back from a 13-month high.
Cryptocurrencies overall were higher, with the total coin market capitalization at $264.20 billion by 11:36 AM ET (15:36 GMT), compared to $261.08 billion a day earlier.
Bitcoin, the largest crypto by market cap, built on the prior day’s gains that pushed it above the $8,000 mark to a close above $8,100. Upward momentum continued on Thursday briefly breaking $8,200. Bitcoin was last up 0.4% at $8,177.7.
Litecoin was one of the few major alt coins trading lower on Thursday as a recent rally ran out of steam. The fourth-largest digital currency, often referred to as Bitcoin’s “younger or little brother”, has jumped 31% in the last seven days and is up 355% year to date.
“Such a dynamic is simply explained: market participants are waiting for halving,” Alexander Kuptsikevich, analyst at FXPro Financial Services, said.
Halving is referred to the fact that the reward for miners will be reduced to 12.5 LTC from the current 25 on Aug. 6. The move is expected to reduce supply growth, increasing the value of the asset.
“Probably, this event is overvalued and as soon as everyone realizes that something large-scale did not happen, the coin will begin to sell off,” Kuptsikevich warned, who nevertheless believes that cryptocurrencies can generate impressive growth in the medium term and cited SimilarWeb as registering a new wave of demand for the crypto market.
In other cryptocurrency trading, Ethereum advanced 2.5% to $260.05, while XRP gained 0.4% to $0.40126.