Crypto Today: XBT rises above $18K, ripple enters consolidation phase

• Bitcoin gains traction on Friday.
• Total market cap continues to edge higher above $500 billion.
• Ripple's rally comes to an end.

Following a corrective slide that lasted three days, bitcoin gathered strength on Friday, pushing the BTC/USD pair to a fresh all-time high at $18,130 and lifting the XBT (CBOE Bitcoin Futures) back above the $18K handle. According to the latest available data on coinmarketcap.com, the BTC/USD pair was trading at $17,858.60, adding 7.71% on the day and more than 80% in December, while XBT was up 7.75% at $18,080. Experts argued that today's upsurge was a product of investors looking to get their hands on more bitcoins before the CME Group launches futures trading on Sunday.

However, concerns over a potential price bubble continue to rise. “Our evidence finds that the price of Bitcoin has been artificially inflated by speculative investment, putting it in a bubble. Although bitcoin is not regulated by governments, it could still have a knock-on effect on traditional markets due to the interconnectedness of cryptocurrency markets with other financial assets," Larisa Yarovaya, one of the report’s authors and a lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University, told Reuters on Friday.

In the meantime, ripple, which surpassed bitcoin cash and became the third largest cryptocurrency behind bitcoin and ether in terms of trading volume, went into a consolidation phase after more than doubling its price in the last two days. At the moment, the XRP/USD pair is trading at 76 cents, down 6.4% on the day.