Crypto Today: Bitcoin eases from record highs, still up nearly $1K on day

Bitcoin's unabated rally continued on Wednesday, lifting the BTC/USD pair to a fresh all-time high at $11427. Although there were no clear catalysts behind today's move, increasing investor interest in digital currencies and Tokyo-based bitFlyer's, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange system by trading volume, entrance into the U.S. market provided a boost. The second most-traded cryptocurrency, ether, also gained traction. The ETH/USD pair broke above the $500 mark for the first time. At the moment, the BTC/USD is trading at $10860, gaining 9.8% on the day.

In the last 24 hours, the total market capitalization of all digital currencies rose by more than $20 billion to reach $343 billion according to the latest available data on coinmarketcap.com.Bitcoin's volume surpassed the 55% level and ether's volume remained steady near 14% on Wednesday. In the meantime, bitcoin cash added nearly 5% on the day but continued to trade in its weekly range. As of writing, the BCH/USD was at $1550. 

Commenting on bitcoin's technical outlook, Omkar Godbole, an analyst at FXStreet, wrote, "further, the relative strength index (RSI) shows overbought conditions on the 1-hour chart and 4-hour chart. Meanwhile, the daily RSI is at the highest level since May further hinting that bitcoin is extremely overbought," in an article published on coindesk.com.

"On a larger scheme of things, only a break below $9,000 (rising trend line support on the daily chart) would signal a bullish-to-bearish trend change. On the higher side, only a high volume jump above $11,000 would be considered a good news, although overbought conditions as showed by the RSI could come into play anytime," Godbole further explains.