Dogecoin (DOGE) and Maker (MKR) soar as the altcoin market cap tops $1T

Dogecoin and Maker stole the spotlight as the hype around COIN faded and Bitcoin consolidates near $63,500.

Now that the Coinbase (COIN) stock listing is out of the way, the focus of traders has shifted back to the crypto market as Bitcoin (BTC) price works to regain its footing above $63,000 and altcoins move higher.

After reaching a new all-time high near $65,000, BTC price dipped below $62,000 before finding a bit of momentum in the range which one fund manager called a “great opportunity to buy.”

Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that Bitcoin has steadily climbed higher since Wednesday’s correction and bulls are attempting to flip the $63,500 level from resistance to support.

Trading action for COIN was muted on Thursday as the price declined during the early trading hours and closed the day at $326.88.

For those who are curious about how Bitcoin’s current price action compares with previous bull cycles, Jarvis Labs co-founder Ben Lilly says looking at the time it took for BTC price to reach its peak following its most recent halving is a good place to start.

As seen in the chart above, the current cycle is falling somewhere in between the 2012 and 2016 halving cycles with the price action “setting up to be faster than what we saw in 2017, but slower than 2013.”

Altcoins steal the show

While Bitcoin and COIN faded from the spotlight on Thursday, altcoins stepped up to carry the market higher. Dogecoin (DOGE) was the breakout star of the day with a 60% rally that saw its price sprint to a new all-time high at $0.1918.

Momentum for DOGE was kicked off when one of cryptocurrency’s well-known proponents and “Technoking of Tesla” Elon Musk posted the following tweet for his 50.8 million followers.

Doge Barking at the Moon pic.twitter.com/QFB81D7zOL

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 15, 2021

Other notable altcoin performances include Maker (MKR), which gained 43% on the day for a record high of $4,102 as its ecosystem moves towards full decentralization, and Band Protocol (BAND), which rallied 38% to a new all-time high at $22.83 following the announcement of integration with Google Cloud.

The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $2.26 trillion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 53.7%.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.