NEM (XEM) Gains 25% as Altcoins Follow Bitcoin’s 30% January Surge

Altcoin investors had much to celebrate on Feb. 6 as NEM (XEM) led a resurgence in the price of many major cryptocurrencies.

Cryptocurrency market daily overview. Source: Coin360

NEM hits six-month high

Data from Coin360 and Cointelegraph Markets showed XEM making gains of nearly 25% overnight on Wednesday, returning above $0.06 per token for the first time since August 2019.

NEM 6-month price chart. Source: Coin360

The move comes as other altcoins saw fresh gains, with several in the top twenty by market cap expanding by more than 10%. Tezos (XTZ) sealed monthly gains of 80%, beating even Bitcoin’s (BTC) track record since the start of 2020.

Ether (ETH), the largest altcoin, delivered returns of 9.5% in the 24 hours to press time, holding support above $200.

For Cointelegraph Markets analyst Michaël van de Poppe, other tokens to watch included XRP and Stellar Lumens (XLM).

While XRP’s performance had failed to impress in recent weeks, a push above $0.28 encouraged traders, with Van de Poppe noting that historically, XLM responded to XRP progress with a copycat move.

“If XRP moves, then Stellar Lumens usually follows. The XLM/BTC pair is showing signals similar to the XRP chart,” he summarized in his latest market update on Wednesday.

Despite the latest gains, XEM and others are still languishing at a fraction of their all-time highs in terms of both Bitcoin and the U.S. dollar.

This failure to recapture lost ground, last seen in early 2018, led several well-known commentators to predict the death of altcoin markets last year. Then, as now, Peter Brandt and Max Keiser, among others, focused almost exclusively on Bitcoin.