The cryptocurrency market as a whole has seen positive price action since April 1st. This article throws light on the performance of privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies by focusing on the top 5 cryptocurrencies in the AltDex privacy coin index.
The AltDex privacy coin index lists Monero, Zcash, ByteCoin, Verge, and Komodo as the top five privacy coins by market cap. All five cryptocurrencies are designed to enable users to execute anonymous transactions. The privacy coins, however, saw varying degrees of price surges between the 1st and the 21st of April.
Monero (XMR) Price Movements Since April 1st
Holders of Monero were not left out of the excitement that followed the major uptrend starting on April 1st. The cryptocurrency’s price moved from $55.9 on April 1st to a new 2019 high of $72.3 on the 3rd of April. This was followed by a correction to $62.4 on April 4th. The Monero (XMR) price has since bounced back to reach $68.7 at the time of writing. In all, the privacy coin has seen a 22.8% price increase thus far this month.
Monero’s total market cap of $1.16 billion makes it the 12th ranked cryptocurrency and the highest ranked privacy-focused coin. The privacy coin has moved a place up from 13th on the coinmarketcap.com list of cryptocurrencies. Additionally, the Monero market cap represents almost half of the 17-coin AltDex privacy coin index.
Readers who’re interested in learning more about Monero’s ongoing development and an evaluation of its past performance may want to read this extensive Monero (XMR) Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats: SWOT Analysis (published in March 2019).
The chart below shows the price movements of Monero since April 1st:
Zcash (ZEC) Price Performance
The Zcash price fell by 1.7% in the last 24 hours. This notwithstanding, the cryptocurrency has recorded an 18.7% price increase since April 1st. The chart below shows the rise from $57.9 on 1st April to the $72.7 peak on 8th April. The price has remained within the $65 to $75 range since an April 4th correction to $65.4. Zcash is currently worth $68.74.
At its current price and market cap, Zcash stands as the 24th ranked cryptocurrency. In spite of its increasing market cap, the privacy coin has dropped two places on the coinmarketcap.com list of cryptocurrencies. However, the current market cap of $437.4 million still earns the cryptocurrency the 2nd place on the privacy coin index with 18.47% of the index’s weight.
In February 2019, the main company behind the development of ZCash changed its name to “Zerocoin Electric Coin Company” in order to provide more clarity. The privacy-centric cryptocurrency also went through a re-branding phase. To learn more, please click here.
ByteCoin (BCN) Sees Steady Increase in Price
To find the 3rd-ranked privacy coin, one has to go all the way to the 45th ranked cryptocurrency on coinmarketcap.com. ByteCoin is known as the first true anonymous coin as popular privacy coins like Monero and Dash were created using ByteCoin’s Cryptonote protocol.
The ByteCoin price rose steadily from $0.000729 on 1st Apr. to $0.001003 on April 4th. This 37.6% increase in price was followed by a correction on April 3rd and another steady rise to $0.001033 on April 8th. There was another correction to $0.000895 on the 11th of April. At the time of writing, the Bytecoin (BCN) price stood at $0.000908 after several days of flatlining. At its current price Bytecoin outperforms both Monero and Zcash with a 24.5% price increase since 1st April.
ByteCoin’s daily volume of $226,252 is by far the least amongst the top five privacy coins. However, the market cap of $167.1 million accounts for around 7% of the privacy coin index.
On March 6th, 2019, the ByteCoin development team published a new roadmap via Twitter.
Get familiar with the new Bytecoin Roadmap for Q1-Q4 2019. Find more info in the blog:https://t.co/aB2d3lIhTN#Bytecoin $BCN #roadmap #release pic.twitter.com/aWwtiubeSr
— Bytecoin BCN (@Bytecoin_BCN) March 6, 2019
Verge (XVG) Experiences More Volatility
Verge, in spite of the bad press it has received in the past and also having endured several 51% attacks, started as the best performing privacy coin during the bullish trend that began on April 1st. The price peaked at $0.011283 on 8th April after opening at $0.007552 on April 1st. At the time, the 49.4% increase in price was the highest recorded amongst the privacy coins on the AltDex index. However, the Verge (XVG) price now sits at $0.008263 after a reversal to $0.008458 on 11th April and the relative price stability that followed. The reversal wiped away most of the gains made on the 8th of April as the percentage price increase of Verge since the uptrend now stands at only 9.4%.
Last month, a prominent Reddit user name /turtlecane published an extensive post which summarized the various challenges Verge has faced in the past year. The Redditor’s post, titled “Verge (XVG) Has Lost 94 Percent of Its Value After Three Time Warp Attacks and a 51 Percent Attack in 2018, Now Mining Code Is Malfunctioning and Developers May Fork to Proof of Stake (PoS),” recounts the technical problems the proof-of-work (PoW)-based chain has faced and how this may limit its long-term potential to achieve significant adoption.
Komodo (KMD) Price Drops After Modest Gains
Komodo accounts for 5% of the AltDex privacy index with a market cap of $121.1 million. This makes it the 5th placed cryptocurrency on the privacy coin index.
As shown in the chart below, the Komodo price surged from $1.12 on 1st Apr. to the $1.28 peak on April 3rd.
Komodo (KMD) bagholders made 14.2% gains in the rally that took place from April 1st to April 8th. In spite of the price increase, Komodo remained the least performing coin amongst the top five cryptocurrencies on the privacy coin index at the time. This became more apparent when the price closed at a low of $0.99 on April 12th. According to coinmarketcap.com, the Komodo (KMD) price is currently $1, making it the only privacy coin to have recorded a negative price change since April 1st.
To learn more about the latest technical updates from Komodo, through detailed interviews from their Chief Technical Officer (CTO), click here and here.
Generally, privacy coins moved in the direction of the entire market in the current uptrend. Most of the privacy coins experienced surges in price on the 1st of April followed by varying degrees of corrections on April 3rd and 4th. The 11th of April was also marked a bad day for the top privacy-focused cryptocurrencies as majority saw declining prices. However, with the exception of Komodo, all the top five privacy coins have made gains since April 1st.
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