Crypto Markets See Second Day of Green, Bitcoin Above $9,700

Wednesday, July 31 - crypto markets are seeing widespread green, with Bitcoin breaking back above $9,700 and many large market cap altcoins seeing solid gains of between 3 and 9% on the day.

Despite trading in a lower price range since dropping back to a four-figure price point in a recent corrections, BTC is today up a solid 2.4%, bringing it to $9,717 by press time.

This mild uptick nonetheless stops short of bringing the coin back into the green on its 7-day chart, where Bitcoin is still reporting a fractional 0.7% loss.

On the month, losses are starker, topping 8%. Yesterday, Peter Tchir - a former Executive Director at German multinational investment bank Deutsche Bank - argued that Bitcoin is an indicator of hidden geopolitical tensions, pointing to the coin's momentous performance this May at a time of fraught trade talks between the United States and China.

Erstwhile Bitcoin bear and CNBC host Joe Kernen predicted that the top coin could hit $55,000 - a 500%+ price surge - by the time of its next halving in May 2020.Bitcoin 7-day price chart.

Top altcoin Ether - which celebrated its fourth birthday yesterday - has posted a 1.9% to trade around $212 by press time.

On the month Ether is down over 18%.Ether 7-day price chart.

XRP is reporting a 2.7% gain on the day, while among the remaining top ten coins several alts are seeing stronger upward momentum: Bitcoin Cash is posting a 7.5% gain on the day, Litecoin is up 3.6% and Binance Coin is up 4.1%. In the context of top twenty coins, Tezos is outstripping all other assets, seeing a 24% gain on the day following news of the token's listing on major United States crypto exchange Coinbase.

At press time, XTZ is trading at $1.24.Tezos 7-day price chart.

Still among the top twenty, strong gains are being reported by Chainlink - up over 9% - as well as by NEO, IOTA and Cosmos, all of which are up by 4-5%. Total market capitalization for all cryptocurrencies is at $261,434,827,781 at press time, according to Coin360 data.