Crypto Market Watch: Bitcoin, Ether Mint Miniscule Gains, Majority Popular Altcoins Trade in Profits

Bitcoin minted a small gain of 0.52 percent to trade at $26,938 (roughly Rs. 22 lakh) on Friday, June 2. In the last 24 hours, the value of Bitcoin dropped by $172 (roughly Rs. 14,170) on both national as well as international exchanges. BTC witnessed a remarkable surge in mid-April, when it recorded a 60 percent hike and reached the trading value of around $31,000 (roughly Rs. 25 lakh). Concerns surrounding inflation and the US' debt ceiling chaos, experts believe, are among major reasons why Bitcoin has been recording a range-bound movement between $26,000 (roughly Rs. 21.4 lakh) to $28,000 (roughly Rs. 23 lakh) in recent weeks.

Industry insiders, in fresh predictions, believe that the coming days could see BTC surge in its value.

“On-chain data reveals an interesting trend as smaller Bitcoin investors, known as ‘shrimps', with wallet balances of less than 1 BTC have aggressively accumulated the largest crypto. Over the past month alone, the supply held by shrimps has risen by 24,600 BTC, reaching an all-time high of 1.31 million BTC. This data suggests that despite the current selling pressure, smaller investors are confident in Bitcoin's long-term potential,” the research team of CoinDCX told Gadgets 360.

Ether's price went up by 1.02 percent on June 2, showed the crypto price chart by Gadgets 360. Ether, at the time of writing, was trading at the price point of $1,875 (roughly Rs. 1.5 lakh). Over the last day, ETH outperformed BTC and gained $21 (roughly Rs. 1,730) price-wise.

Along with ETH, a bunch of cryptocurrencies managed to see small gains on Friday.

These include Binance Coin, Ripple, Cardano, Dogecoin, Polygon, Litecoin, Tron, and Polkadot.

The overall crypto market valuation also spiked by 1.11 percent in the last 24 hours to sit on the price point of $1.14 trillion (roughly Rs. 94,07,860 crore), showed the data by CoinMarketCap on Friday.

“The crypto fear and greed index took a 2-point hit since yesterday and remains in the neutral zone with 52 points. Investors continue to take a cautious approach toward crypto markets. Tether's USDT has also regained its previous all-time high market capitalisation despite a shrinking stablecoin market,” Parth Chaturvedi, Investments Lead, CoinSwitch Ventures, told Gadgets 360.

Meanwhile, USD Coin, Solana, Binance USD, Shiba Inu, Chainlink, Leo, and Monero recorded losses on June 2.

In other news, India and the US are seemingly taking polar opposite approaches towards central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). While RBI deputy governor has recently backed a blockchain-focussed fintech future in the backdrop of the ongoing retail CBDC trials, lawmakers in the US are divided on whether a CBDC must be introduced into US' economy or not.

Earlier this week, US Congressman Alex Mooney proposed a bill called the Digital Dollar Pilot Prevention Act (H.R. 3712) that urges the US Federal Reserve to stop the research and development related to the introduction of the CBDC or digital dollar. Reactions to this proposal from other US policymakers remain awaited for now.

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.