Bitcoin, Ether Tumble Down Price Charts Taking Other Cryptocurrencies Along

Bitcoin prices slipped by 5.71 percent on Friday, February 18 after the reigning crown of the crypto kingdom continuously scored gains for the last few days. BTC is trading at $43,287 (roughly Rs. 32.5 lakh) on Indian exchange CoinSwitch Kuber. The crypto asset saw even bigger losses of up to 7.17 percent on international exchanges. On Binance, for example, Bitcoin is trading at $40,652 (roughly Rs. 30.5 lakh), losing over seven percent value. Bitcoin's losses had a domino effect on the rest of the crypto market.

Ether values fell by 4.08 percent, bringing its value down to $3,105 (roughly Rs. 23,000) according to Gadgets 360's crypto price tracker. Replicating Bitcoin's performance, ETH also registered bigger losses on global exchanges. The altcoin dropped by 5.83 percent on CoinMarketCap to trade at $2,900 (roughly Rs. 2.15 lakh) and 4.79 percent to trade at $3,053 (roughly Rs. 2 lakh) on Indian exchanges including CoinDCX.

A plethora of other altcoins also opened with substantial losses.

Binance Coin, Ripple, Cardano, Solana, Terra, and Avalanche saw losses between three and seven percent.

The gain-spell of Dogecoin and Shiba Inu also broke today, as both the meme coins opened with dents.

While DOGE value slipped by 3.59 percent to trade at $0.15 (roughly Rs. 11), SHIB tumbled by 5.44 percent, dragging its price to $0.000031 (roughly Rs. 0.002326).

Tether, USD Coin, Neo, and Binance USD emerged as the only altcoins to have seen minor profits.

“As the crypto market wavers under the uncertainty of global conflicts such as the Russia-Ukrainian tensions, institutional support is necessary and important in boosting greater trust and credibility for the sector,” the research team at CoinDCX told Gadgets 360.

The comment comes in the backdrop of venture capital firm Sequoia Capital launching a crypto fund of up to $600 million (roughly Rs. 4,500 crore) aiming to invest in liquid tokens and digital assets.

“Such prominent institutions making further inroads into the digital asset industry reaffirms crypto's staying power in the long run,” the CoinDCX team added.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) also added another pinch of validation for the crypto space by applying for licenses for operating as a crypto exchange and NFT marketplace in the future.

Meanwhile, the US is ramping up monitoring efforts around digital currencies. As part of this, the FBI is launching a unit for blockchain analysis and virtual asset seizure.

Presently, the total market cap of the crypto market is $1.85 trillion (roughly Rs. 1,38,77,245 crore) as per CoinMarketCap.

 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.