The bitcoin price rose another 3% on Monday, bringing it within $20 of the $4,600 threshold and enabling it to raise its total market share above 50%. The ripple price joined bitcoin in its ascent and extended its rally by another 10%. Unfortunately, the rest of the markets were not so lucky. The ethereum price posted a minor decline, and the majority of other top 100 cryptocurrencies followed its lead.

Chart from CoinMarketCap

After a mid-day rally, the total cryptocurrency market cap ended the day trading sideways, although it did add about $800 million to bring the total value of all cryptocurrencies to a present value of $151.2 billion. However, the total market cap of cryptocurrencies — excluding bitcoin — fell by about $900 million, and if you remove ripple from the equation, it drops another $800 million.

Chart from CoinMarketCap

It is not immediately clear what is causing this trend, although some — including prominent trader and economist Tuur Demeester — have speculated that investors are positioning themselves to receive the coins that will be airdropped if the SegWit2x hard fork executes as scheduled. However, the hard fork will not take place until November — if at all — so, as Demeester noted, it's possible something else is at play.