Bitcoin, Ether Fluctuate in Value After a Rough Day for Equity Markets

Bitcoin has had a fluctuating run over the past 24 hours, varying within a range of 4 percent in what has been a dreadful day for global equity markets. Concerns over the rising number of new Omicron cases have led investors to consistently narrow their pockets on riskier assets like cryptocurrency. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s valuation is up by 2.31 percent over the past 24 hours after a 2.05 percent drop through Monday. Bitcoin is currently valued at $50,930 (roughly Rs. 38.57 lakh) on Indian exchange CoinSwitch Kuber, while global exchanges like CoinMarketCap show a 2.68 percent rise to see Bitcoin valued at $48,357 (roughly Rs. 36.62 lakh).

As per CoinGecko, Bitcoin’s valuation has moved up by 4.8 percent despite hiccups over the past week.

Ether had a similar day in terms of trade to begin the week. The second-most valuable cryptocurrency is up by 2.47 percent over the past 24 hours after a dip of 2.54 percent through Monday. At the time of writing, Ether is valued at $4,261 (roughly Rs. 3.22 lakh) on CoinSwitch Kuber while values on global exchanges see the second-largest crypto by market cap pegged at $4,050 (roughly Rs. 3.06 lakh), where the coin has gained in value by 2.79 percent over the past 24 hours. Ether has also moved up 6.8 percent in value over the past week, despite a rough past few weeks.

Gadgets 360’s cryptocurrency price tracker reveals a mixed start to the week for most altcoins. Cardano, Polygon, Chainlink, and Uniswap have all gained in value, while Tether, Polkadot, and Ripple registered dips in the past 24 hours.

Elsewhere, Dogecoin saw a steep fall in valuation to $0.17 (roughly Rs. 13.58), down by 1.28 percent after a 4.58 percent fall through Monday. While arch-rival Shiba Inu climbed 4.64 percent after a 4.25 percent slide on Monday to be valued at $0.000032 (roughly Rs. 0.002427).

“The top cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation remained range-bound over the past 24 hours. At the same time, we saw a bump in the derivatives segment. The coming few days could likely remain volatile for the cryptocurrency spectrum,” said Edul Patel, CEO and co-founder of algorithm-based crypto investment platform, Mudrex.

While risk assets like crypto may be out of investor favour at the moment, it comes as no surprise that 2021 has been the year for digital assets. In 2021, venture capital interest has hit levels that see crypto investments quadrupling the previous all-time high recorded in 2018. The crypto space has managed to rake in more than $30 billion (roughly Rs. 2,27,617 crore) in 2021 as per a report by PitchBook Data as the perception towards cryptocurrencies has gone beyond seeing it as “digital gold” this year.

Now, Bitcoin’s value may be up 92 percent over the past year with a market capitalisation of over $1 trillion (roughly Rs. 75,87,463 crore) but there are still sceptics, including Eswar Prasad, an international trade policy professor at Cornell University and an author, believes that the largest cryptocurrency might not stick around for much longer. Prasad, in a recent interview, stated that Bitcoin might fade out of existence due to its lack of efficiency and its inability to facilitate exchange as a mode of payment.

Prasad believes that Bitcoin has no fundamental value because it cannot function as a suitable medium of exchange. “Bitcoin’s use of the blockchain technology is not very efficient. It uses a validation mechanism for transactions that is environmentally destructive that doesn’t scale up very well,” he said in an interview.

Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency, not a legal tender and subject to market risks. The information provided in the article is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, trading advice or any other advice or recommendation of any sort offered or endorsed by NDTV. NDTV shall not be responsible for any loss arising from any investment based on any perceived recommendation, forecast or any other information contained in the article.