It is safe to say the final days of 2017 and the first few of 2018 have been pretty interesting for IOTA. Although it seemed this altcoin was tanking in value, the IOTA price has shot up again and surpassed US$4.25 earlier today. It is evident the year 2018 may hold quite a few surprises, although it remains to be seen how things will play out. For now, the IOTA price is moving up strongly, although things can always change at any given moment.

IOTA is on the Move Again

In most cases, a stagnating Bitcoin price is quite problematic for the vast majority of altcoins. This has been a dreaded scenario for quite some time now, even though it appears the dominance of Bitcoin is far less of a factor these days. In fact, we regularly see altcoins go up in value regardless of what Bitcoin is doing at the time. In particular, the

To be more specific, the IOTA price has risen to US$4.27 once again. That is quite a relief to many long-term holders of this altcoin, as it appeared its value was headed for US$2.50 not that long ago. At its lowest point in the past week, the IOTA price hit US$3.01, which created an excellent buying opportunity for many people. Ever since that time, we have seen a relatively solid uptrend for IOTA again, culminating in the push past US$4.00 and US$4.25.

Although the IOTA price was valued slightly higher a few hours ago, it seems to be a matter of time until US$4.35 is broken again. All cryptocurrency markets are flourishing as we speak, although there is still an overall bearish sentiment in the Bitcoin market. Whether or not this will have any major effect on the IOTA price moving forward remains to be determined. For now, this market looks pretty healthy, even though its trading volume is still on the low side.

IOTA has seen a trading volume of just US$342 million in the past 24 hours. Although that is a respectable amount, we know this altcoin is capable of achieving so much more. It will be interesting to see if US$500 million in volume will be attained later today, especially now that the IOTA price is appreciating pretty nicely. After all, there will always be people looking to take profits and exit their positions.

With a few new exchanges adding IOTA in Q4 of 2017, the market rankings based on trading volume look slightly different as well. Binance is now the go-to market for IOTA, although Bitfinex is hot on its tail. In fact, both exchanges have two trading markets in the top four, of which only one is related to fiat currency. OKEx rounds out the top five. Further down the list, we see two other Bitfinex markets, Binance’s BNB pair, OKEx’s USDT pair, and CoinFalcon. It’s a very interesting list, although some other exchanges would be welcome. Coinone is also adding some good volume, yet CoinMarketCap.com has excluded its data for the time being.

For now, it is unclear how all this will play out moving forward. There is sufficient momentum in place to breach US$5. Whether or not that will happen today is anybody’s guess. In the world of cryptocurrency, nothing is impossible and one should expect the unexpected. What that means for IOTA exactly is unclear, but rest assured a lot of people will be keeping a close eye on the market moving forward.