Much to the relief of cryptocurrency traders, the crypto market has continued to push higher on Wednesday with strong gains being seen across the board.
This has lifted the entire value of the market to US$333 billion according to Coin Market Cap, which is a 10% increase over the last 24 hours.
Why are crypto prices on a tear?
The catalyst for this gain appears to have been a flight to safety following the selloff in equities related to Italian political turmoil.
In the past cryptocurrencies have been seen by traders as a good alternative to gold when markets selloff. This certainly proved to be the case overnight when cryptocurrencies started to rally just as equity markets started to tumble.
Which coins are performing best today?
While the Bitcoin (BTC) price has been a strong performer and is up almost 6% since this time yesterday to US$7,542.70 per coin, its alt coin peers have been vastly outperforming the world's largest cryptocurrency.
The Ethereum (ETH) price has been a highlight with its 10.8% gain over the last 24 hours to US$579.28 per token. This strong gain lifted its market capitalisation to just under US$58 billion.
Whilst this was impressive, the gains have been even stronger for both Ripple (XRP) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). These two popular alt coins are up 11.7% and 13.8%, respectively, during the period.
Elsewhere, the EOS (EOS) price is up 6.9% and the Litecoin (LTC) price has moved 8% higher.
But the strongest gainer in the top ten has been the Cardano (ADA) price. It is up a massive 20.3% over the last 24 hours to 21.3 U.S. cents.
Cardano appears to be rallying hard following the release of its 1.2 update today which is expected to broaden the coin's appeal. This strong gain has just pipped the IOTA (MIOTA) price which has moved 20% higher during the period.
Foolish takeaway
While this strong move higher today has been exactly what the market needed after a couple of weeks of declines, it is still early days. I would suggest traders sit tight and wait to see what the market does next.
