Best Cryptocurrency Cross Forex Brokers

Like the national or fiat currencies traded in the forex market, cryptocurrencies trade in pairs relative to other cryptocurrencies or to fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar or the European Union's euro. When cryptocurrencies trade relative to other cryptocurrencies, the resulting pair is called a crypto cross.

The number of available cryptocurrencies, and hence the number of cryptocurrency pairs, changes frequently as new cryptocurrencies are issued through their initial coin offerings or ICOs. The current number of existing cryptocurrencies is estimated at over 2,500 and rising.

When newly issued cryptocurrencies are modelled on Bitcoin, perhaps with some changes or improvements, they are called altcoins. A popular example of an altcoin is Litecoin, which was one of the first cryptocurrencies issued after Bitcoin.

The market exchange rate of cryptocurrency and crypto cross pairs can fluctuate substantially, as the perceived relative values of the currencies involved fluctuate up and down.

Factors that influence the crypto markets include relevant news, as well as varying supply and demand factors. Also, both currencies in a particular currency pair can result in valuation shifts. Thus, if the U.S. dollar was appreciating sharply in the currency market, perhaps due to an increase in U.S. employment numbers, then this may reduce the cost of the various cryptocurrencies in U.S. dollar terms.

Another important valuation factor for cryptocurrencies is their usability, in other words, the ability to spend the digital coins on actual goods. For example, if another major retailer announced that they were planning on accepting payments in Bitcoin, then the relative value of Bitcoin would tend to rise substantially versus the dollar.

Examining the ranking of cryptocurrency pairs and crypto crosses in their trading volume on a particular day, such as the table below, it's clear that pairs containing actively traded coins with smaller denominations tend to rank higher. This is because the relatively lower price of the "smaller" cryptocurrencies means that a larger volume of trading on an average day can take place.

In comparison to the previous ranking of trading volume, the table below ranks the top 13 cryptocurrencies by their price per coin or token, their market capitalisation and their daily volume traded on June 27, 2019. All of the amounts listed are expressed in U.S. dollars.

In the table image above it's clear that Bitcoin is the highest performer. With a price per coin of US $10,975.08, a market capitalisation of $195.19 billion and a daily traded volume of $39.04 billion, Bitcoin is far ahead of its nearest fellow cryptocurrencies.

In fact, as of June 27, 2019, second place Ethereum was recording numbers less than a third of those achieved by Bitcoin, with $293.58, $31.32 billion and $13.64 billion respectively. However, it's important to bear in mind, that these figures don't represent the overall, or recent, trends in each cryptocurrencies performance, and each will fall and rise in turn based on short term market fluctuations.

For a full guide to everything cryptocurrency related, including finding the right broker and exchange for you, make sure to check out the BrokerNotes Ultimate Guide to Cryptocurrencies.