$160 Billion: Cryptocurrency Market Sets New All-Time High

Investment in cryptocurrencies continues to increase.

Spurred by increases in investment, the total value of the more than 800 publicly traded cryptocurrencies and crypto assets pushed past $160 billion for the first time ever, according to data provider CoinMarketCap.

With the move, the figure is now up 1,500 percent from the $10 billion observed at the start of the year.

Notably, the new high was set even as bitcoin, the market's largest asset, continued its recent pattern of sideways trading, hovering in the $4,400-range, or about 1% below its all time high of $4,522.13 on the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (BPI).

Similar, ether and bitcoin were mostly flat on the day's trading.

At press time, it seemed most of the growth in the top 10 cryptocurrencies was consolidated to two assets, with Ripple's XRP token and monero's XMR token rising 9% and 7.9%, respectively, over the last 24 hours.

On XMR's increase, the asset regained a spot in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization after some time out of the spotlight.

Elsewhere, investment in litecoin appeared to cool after it set all-time highs earlier in the day's trading. After rising past $60 for the first time since the protocol was introduced in 2011, the token was down nearly 2%.

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