The global cryptocurrency market cap rose by 4% early Thursday, January 2, 2025, as the market flipped green amid gains for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).
Gains by most altcoins helped push the global market cap to above $3.4 trillion. Volume was up 13% to over $112 billion, while BTC dominance declined to around 56.2%.
Among top crypto stories, Binance has announced plans to launch perpetual contracts for Solana AI memecoins ai16z, Zerobro, and Griffain.
Meanwhile, crypto exchange KuCoin has introduced a crypto payment service, which will allow merchants to accept payments from customers’ accounts.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Fartcoin leads as AI meme coin hits new high
On Jan. 2, the Solana AI meme coin Fartcoin (FARTCOIN) rose by more than 32% to hit highs of $1.30.
The token’s surge in the top 100 by market cap continued as it ranked 82nd on CoinMarketCap with $1.28 billion.
FARTCOIN lead as its price raced to a new all-time high.
Stellar, XRP top gainers among top 20
Notably, the top gainers in the 20 largest cryptocurrencies by market cap included XRP (XRP), Stellar (XLM), Cardano (ADA), Avalanche (AVA), and Chainlink (LINK).
The altcoins were up double-digits in the past 24 hours at the time of writing, with XLM leading amid a 26% spike to an intraday high of $0.45.
Stellar could strengthen its upside momentum and set a new all-time high above the $0.87 peak reached in 2018.
A bullish market outlook that has the top coins on an early bounce in 2025 will be the key catalyst.
Ripple’s XRP is also showing positive momentum after key developments in 2024, including the launch of its stablecoin RLUSD.
XRP skyrocketed in the last two months of the year following Trump’s win. While the coin pared some of the gains recorded as it hit multi-year highs of $2.82, it remains bullish.
The 13% spike in the past 24 hours has the XRP market cap at over $137 billion, the third largest cryptocurrency in the world.
FTM up 23% amid altcoin surge
RENDER, Theta Network, and Virtuals Protocol have recorded significant gains to lead AI tokens.
Meanwhile, Fantom (FTM) was up more than 22% to trade at highs seen on Dec. 28.
The altcoin’s spike comes amid interest as Binance leads other exchanges ready to support the 1:1 switch with Sonic’s S token.
Despite the intraday gains, FTM price remains down more than 30% from the highs above $1.45 reached on Dec. 16.
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