Crypto Price Chart Shows Gains and Losses as Altcoins Swell Up While Bitcoin, Ether See Dips

Bitcoin opened with losses on Monday, January 17, stepping into the third week of 2022. With a dip of 0.57 percent, each token of Bitcoin is trading at $46,214 (roughly Rs. 34.2 lakh) on Indian exchange CoinSwitch Kuber. On international exchanges as well, Bitcoin has suffered similarly marginal price loss. The world's oldest cryptocurrency is trading at around $42,500 (roughly Rs. 31.6 lakh) on global exchanges such as CoinMarketCap and Binance. Along with Bitcoin's failure to gain, Ether has also registered losses.

Ether is trading at $3,532 (roughly Rs. 2.62 lakh) per token. According to Gadgets 360's crypto price chart, Ether incurred a loss of 1.40 percent and dropped in value from its previously closing price of $3,582 (roughly Rs. 2.65 lakh).

Ripple, Polkadot, Dogecoin, and Shiba Inu among a bunch of other popular altcoins also witnessed price lows, following Bitcoin and Ether.

The market momentum has slowed down again today after it had seemingly picked pace earlier last week following US' inflation hiking to a 39-year high of seven percent. On January 13, Bitcoin was trading at $43,598 (roughly Rs. 32.2 lakh) on international exchanges.

As per industry insiders, the rising popularity of altcoins among investors could pose a challenge to Bitcoin's supremacy.

As Bitcoin's prominence begins to waver, BitPay saw a 27 percent drop in merchants processing Bitcoin payments in 2021, and a rise in transactions in stablecoins, Ether and Dogecoin,” the research team of CoinDCX told Gadgets 360. “With altcoins gaining ground amongst retail investors, we may see other digital assets challenging Bitcoin's pole position and place as a safe haven asset in 2022.”

Meanwhile, a bunch of cryptocurrencies did manage to register gains despite the mega ones being hit by losses.

Tether, Cardano, USD Coin, Polygon, Chainlink, Uniswap and Litecoin climbed up the price ladder with small but significant gains.

The predictions of billionaire business tycoons such as Elon Musk and Mark Cuban spell out a bright future for the crypto sector in the times to come.

While Musk has opened payments for Tesla merchandise in DOGE, Cuban recently called Ether the closest crypto asset we have to the existing fiat currencies.

The maturing crypto sector is also set to see lesser criminals trying to misuse cryptocurrencies in the near future, a report by research firm Chainalysis said.

The study claims that the criminal usage of cryptocurrencies will drop around the world, as more governments learn to take advantage of the uncensored transparency that the blockchain technology offers.

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.