Crypto markets have gotten a long-awaited dose of good news after what has seemed an eternity of misery. They are enjoying a broad-based rally, with many coins back to 1-week highs.
Bitcoin is now trading at $516 on BTC-e, up by over 10% in 24h when peaking at $530. If one would have bought in at $309 during the flash crash 3 days ago, total returns would be 67%.
Litecoin is flirting with $6.00 again. And just as Litecoin was the hardest hit during the market slump, it is now the best performer amongst major coins. It is up by 31% in the past 24h alone, and at its peak of $6.19, 86% from its trough of $3.33 hit during the flash crash.
During the recent slump and today's rally, Altcoins have recoupled with Bitcoin in following and amplifying its movements. With Litecoin's more extreme activity, LTC/BTC has jumped back to 0.0113.
Peercoin is up by 25%, and Namecoin 12.5%.
In also keeping with tradition during the slump, 2nd generation currencies for decentralized exchange have differentiated themselves from the pack, much like that stock which does its own thing when the rest of the market is rushing in one direction. Ripple is up the least out of top coins, gaining (only) 4.5%. Nxt is actually down by 3.3%.
One ought to be cautious about the mid-term term outlook, however. As mentioned when Litecoin started its rally yesterday, such rallies are naturally occurring phenomena during periods of major decline. Each one is a brief correction, a retracement, part of an overall trend. The bigger the downtrend, the bigger the correction. A true recovery is in the works only when we see a bottoming and stabilization, followed by a steady and convincing string of gains equal in magnitude and duration to the earlier declines.
