Cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin Up 9% This Week (BTC-USD)

By Jennifer Nash

This weekly update tracks some of the largest cryptocurrencies by market share: Bitcoin (BTC-USD) and Ether (ETH-USD). While both are considered high-risk assets, they possess foundational differences that investors should understand.

We have also included XRP (XRP-USD), as it was one of the largest cryptocurrencies when this series began. By definition, a cryptocurrency is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange that uses cryptography to secure its transactions, control the creation of additional units, and verify the transfer of assets.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin was the world's first decentralized digital currency. Since the first Bitcoin transaction occurred in early 2009, it has grown worldwide to a mainstream financial asset. While often volatile, as illustrated in the chart below, one can argue that Bitcoin is highly resilient, especially as product innovation expands the ways investors can manage Bitcoin's volatility.

Bitcoin's closing price was up 9% this week as of August 19. BTC is currently down approximately 21% year-to-date and sits about 44% below its October 2025 record high.

Ether

Ether is the native cryptocurrency run on the Ethereum blockchain platform, which launched in July 2015. It has the second largest market share, despite being the newest of the three assets discussed in this article.