Bitcoin continues to hit record highs while Solana weakens

The king crypto Bitcoin has reached a new all-time high, strengthening its position against the rest of the altcoin market.

The bullish mood in the crypto markets continues. Bitcoin's price reached a new record of $107,822 (about €98,585) yesterday, on Dec. 16, according to data from Coingecko. This rise is likely due to further purchases by MicroStrategy worth $1.5 billion (about €1.37 billion) and a new accounting standard for Bitcoin at corporations. Over the past two weeks, Bitcoin has been able to continue its dominance over the rest of the altcoin market. According to TradingView, BTC's dominance has increased by 4 percent during this period. Within the top 10 cryptocurrencies, Ripple's XRP saw the largest increase in 24 hours, up 7.6 percent.

The upcoming launch of the RLUSD stablecoin seems to be generating a lot of enthusiasm among investors. In contrast, Solana showed remarkable weakness, falling 17.2% since its record high in late November, and is currently trading at $219 (about €200). On a weekly and daily basis, SOL has stagnated - probably as the hype around memecoins has waned and the Solana-based launch platform Pump.fun has become increasingly discredited.

Solana's weakness has benefited Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, which is now trading above $4,000 (about €3,656). Record inflows into ETH ETFs indicate growing interest from traditional financial institutions and may indicate a turnaround in investor sentiment. Other notable winners in the top 100 include the Hyperliquid-DEX's recently launched token, $HYPE, which lives up to its name with more than 100% growth in a week and serves as an example of a successful airdrop. The biggest losses, meanwhile, are posted by Helium ($HNT), the Ethereum Name Service ($ENS) and Ethena ($ENA), down 11.6%, 8.5% and 6.6%, respectively.