December Crypto Roundup: Markets Hit Lowest Level of The Year

Best recovery in crypto for the month; Ethereum, Tron, Iota and Maker, still falling were Stellar, Monero and Zcash.

The final month of 2018 saw cryptocurrency markets hit their lowest levels for the year. On December 15 crypto market capitalization had tumbled to $100 billion, down almost 88% from the peak in January. Since then it has recovered somewhat ending the month at the same level it began, around $130 billion which is still painfully low.

Despite these lows, November remains the worst month for crypto markets in 2018. Bitcoin lost 11% over the course of December starting at just over $4,000 and ending at around $3,850. BTC could not break resistance at $4,300 and plunged to a 2018 low of just below $3,200 in mid-December before recovering a little. Since its all-time high Bitcoin had lost 80% over the course of the year.

Ethereum has fared no better over the course of the year but did manage to recover 24% in December. After getting completely hammered the previous month ETH started out at $113 and ended the month at just below $140 following a dive to a yearly low of $85.

Ripple’s XRP held on to second spot but only just by the end of the month. It had recovered just 2% by month end where XRP traded at $0.369. There was much less volatility on XRP markets throughout December compared to other crypto assets.

Bitcoin Cash had some wild swings in December plunging to depths at $75 before recovering 190% to $220. It had lost a lot of those gains though and was down over 5% by month end trading at $163.

EOS managed to hold fifth spot but also lost out in December with a 7% decline to $2.63. Its low for the year came on the 8^th when EOS hit $1.57, a marginal recovery has occurred but it still ended the month lower than it started. Stellar had a pretty dismal month in December with a 26% loss to end it at $0.117. The recovery from the low of $0.093 has been slow for XLM which has performed better than most in previous months.

Litecoin remained at around $32 at the end of December which is where it started so there was no gain or loss. LTC had recovered almost 40% from its 2018 low of $23 but things were not moving much by the end of the month.

Over 7% was lost by Bitcoin SV over the course of December when it fell from $95 down to $65 then back to $88 by the end of the month. Rounding out the top ten is Tron which made an impressive gain of 38% over the course of the month. TRX did not suffer the big dump on the 15^th and has been steadily gaining over the course of December, ending it at $0.020.

Cardano failed to get back into the top ten despite gaining 7% over the month. Iota did even better with a 27% rise to end December at $0.366 but Monero had a miserable month dropping 17% to end it at $47. Binance Coin fared better with a 20% gain in December to end it at $6.13. Dash dumped 13% and ended the month at $80 while Nem joined it with an equal loss. Ethereum Classic ended December 12% higher than it started, trading at $5.18. There was very little activity with Neo last month which remained at around $7.80. Maker made an impression on the top twenty with a 28% climb over the month to end it at $463. Finally there is Zcash joining the other privacy cryptos with a dump of 27% in December from $80 to $58.

Recovery was mixed for the top twenty cryptocurrencies in December. Looking back at 2018 all of them have been beat up and are close to their lowest levels for around 18 months.  The crypto winners for December were those that recovered the most which included Ethereum, Tron, Iota and Maker. The losers for the month were Stellar, Monero and Zcash.

All figures from Coinmarketcap.com

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