The past 48 hours have proven to be quite intriguing for anyone involved in the Dash cryptocurrency. With prices spiking to a new all-time high yesterday afternoon, things got off to a good start. Albeit Dash has seen a small correction ever since, the price per individual coin still hovers around the US$46 mark. Dash is now the third-most valuable cryptocurrency in existence.

People who have been holding onto their Dash for some time were more than happy to see the recent price increase take form. With the value increasing by 450% over the past few days, it is evident the demand for privacy-centric altcoins is bigger than ever before. Dash has been around for several years now, yet never saw such a spectacular price increase up until the past two days.

All of this positive momentum has catapulted Dash to the third rank on Coinmarketcap. To put this into perspective, Dash is now the third-biggest cryptocurrency based on their market cap. At the price of US$46.09 per coin, the total market cap sits at US$328,782 million. That is quite an impressive feat and it allowed Dash to bypass Ripple, which has been the third-largest market cap for quite some time. Dash is still a long way removed from overtaking Ethereum, though, as there is a US$1.5bn gap between the two right now.

It is difficult to explain why the Dash price saw such an impressive price surge all of a sudden. There has been positive news, as Dash has been officially integrated into point-of-sale devices. In doing so, the manufacturers of these devices aim to make cryptocurrency payments more accessible to merchants and more common among consumers all over the world. That news alone would not propel Dash to the third spot on Coinmarketcap, though. It is evident some of the cryptocurrency traders and speculators had a role to play in all of this as well.

One Reddit user explained how the parabolic rise of Dash can be attributed to the Poloniex exchange. On this cryptocurrency exchange platform, users can lend out their Dash balance as a way to generate passive interest once the money is repaid. Using leverage to margin trade has been one of the primary reasons why Poloniex became the number one altcoin exchange in the world today. Users borrow cryptocurrencies from others and bet on which way the market will evolve.

Considering Dash saw a bullish trend, a lot of traders aimed to borrow funds to open long positions on the Dash price. However, some people were betting the Dash price would crash and opened short position, which requires a Dash balance to do so in the first place. With the demand to borrow Dash on the rise a lot of people expected a price crash the number of bitcoin flowing into the market exploded exponentially. It was impossible to open shorts due to lack of Dash, hence the bullish price trend could be maintained without problems.

With shorts no longer being able to match the longs opened on Dash, it was evident something had to give sooner or later. Shorters were forced to buy back into bitcoin at a loss, causing a short squeeze for Dash. A lot of people made good profit and suffered big losses as a result of this unexpected price movement. This is only part of the reason why the Dash price shot up, but it goes to show there was a lot momentum caused by speculators and traders. It is good to see someone explaining the situation in this manner, that much is certain.

In the end, the price momentum for Dahs has somewhat kept its flow going. A lot of people expected a retrace to US$20 per coin or less, yet that has not happened yet. Instead, the price has seemingly found a stable floor for now. Dash remains the third-most valuable cryptocurrency, which will not change anytime soon by the look of things. Whether or not this trend can be turned into long-term momentum for Dash, remains to be seen.

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Dash Becomes Third-Most Valuable Cryptocurrency Based On ... - The Dash Times (blog)