Investing.com – Bitcoin recovered for a second consecutive session on Tuesday after last week’s plunge wiped out nearly half its value.
Bitcoin gained 5.26%, or $750.00, on the Bitfinex exchange to trade at $14,998.00 by 8:01AM ET (13:01GMT).
The most popular cryptocurrency –which trades 24 hours a day, 7 days a week- hit a record high of $19,891.00 on December 17 in the run up to CME’s launch of Bitcoin Futures that same Sunday.
However, from that top Bitcoin proceeded to plunge nearly 50% in what was six consecutive days of declines to hit a low last Friday at $10,718.00.
The largest alternative currency by market cap staged a short-lived jump of around 6.6% on Friday, only to shave those gains on Christmas Eve.
On Tuesday, Bitcoin continued a second day of recovery and was last up approximately 40% from last Friday’s low, but still off 25% from record highs and struggling to maintain the $15,000 mark.
Despite the recent plunge, Bitcoin has rallied 50% in December and is well on its way to pocket gains of more than 1,400% for all of 2017 which it began just under $1,000, leading many to explain last week’s dive as a long overdue correction.
Since that Sunday top, the alternative currency is currently down around 42% at the time of writing. However, Bitcoin has still rallied around 1,100% from just under $1,000 at the beginning of the year and maintains gains of nearly 16% in December alone.
Elsewhere in cryptocurrency trading, rivals were seeing mixed trade on Tuesday. At 8:02AM ET (13:02GMT), Ethereum, the second most valuable cryptocurrency by market cap after bitcoin, slipped 0.06% to $734.00, Bitcoin Cash, the result of the “fork” from the world’s largest digital currency on August 1 in a move that was designed to be able to process transactions more quickly at a lower cost, fell 0.86% to $2,184.60, while Ripple - designed for banks and global money transfers and with one of the more affordable price tags- gained 2.36% to $0.99490.