The solid run by cryptocurrencies has come to an end overnight with four of the five-largest coins tumbling into the red.
One of the worst performers has been the bitcoin (BTC) price. It has shed 4% of its value over the last 24 hours and at the time of writing is fetching US$11,292 per coin according to Coin Market Cap.
This gives the world's largest cryptocurrency a market capitalisation of US$190 billion.
Ethereum (ETH) has also fallen by a similar margin and is down 4.3% since this time yesterday to US$1,182. This has left ETH with a market capitalisation of approximately US$115 billion.
The world's third-largest cryptocurrency, Ripple (XRP), has managed to defy the crypto market and push higher during the last 24 hours.
The popular altcoin has seen its value climb almost 1.4% during the period to US$1.34, giving it a market capitalisation of US$51.8 billion.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has followed BTC lower by 4% during the period and now fetches US$1,661 per coin. And Cardano (ADA) has been the worst of the top five with a decline of 6% to 62.2 U.S. cents.
Finally, one bright spot has been the performance of NEO (NEO) overnight. It stormed 8% higher to US$161.92 over the last 24 hours to overtake Stellar Lumens (XLM) as the sixth-largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalisation of US$10.5 billion.
NEO, often referred to as the Chinese Ethereum, has been growing in popularity in recent times amid speculation that it might escape the wrath of Chinese regulators.
Which is surely a big positive for the altcoin given the huge crackdown that is being undertaken in the country. And probably makes it worth keeping a close eye on over the coming months.
But I would resist buying NEO or any other cryptocurrencies for the time being. At this point I feel it is near impossible to predict where prices will go next, which makes it a very risky investment proposition.
