ETC Soars 28%, ETH Up 7% on Bellatrix Upgrade Day (Market Watch)

While bitcoin continues to trade in a tight range below the $20,000 mark, some alternative coins have gone on a tear.

Interestingly, Ethereum and Ethereum Classic have stolen the show, as the latter has soared by double-digits.

ETH and ETC Skyrocket

With the long-anticipated Merge right around the corner, the Ethereum community is getting more and more excited about the transition from PoW to PoS. The latest development on the matter is the Bellatrix update, scheduled to take place later today.

The hype around the event has pushed the second-largest cryptocurrency higher by 6.5%. As a result, ETH now trades at a multi-day high north of $1,650.

Ethereum Classic is an even more impressive performer. The asset has skyrocketed by over 26% in the past 24 hours and has jumped above $40.

Cardano, Solana, and Avalanche are also well in the green, being up by between 4-7%. Although more modest, BNB, XRP, DOT, DOGE, SHIB, and MATIC have also charted some daily gains.

These gains by the altcoins have helped the cumulative market cap of all crypto assets to recover $30 billion in a day, and the metric is now close to $1 trillion once more.

Bitcoin Still Below $20K

And while some alternative coins have marked impressive gains on a daily scale, the largest cryptocurrency seems to be stuck around a familiar level.

The asset lost the coveted $20,000 last week and has stood below it ever since, aside from a few brief pumps to and above that line.

The latest such example came hours ago when BTC jumped to an intraday high of $20,300 but was stopped in its tracks.

As of now, it still trades inches away from $20,000, and its market cap has bounced off to $380 billion. Its dominance over the altcoins, though, has taken another hit and is down below 39%.