Bitcoin, Ether Continue to Trade Flat Despite Small Uptick Over the Weekend

Bitcoin, the world largest cryptocurrency by market cap, has had a surprisingly rough past couple of weeks but the weekend did see a substantial run in the green to begin the week on a positive. Bitcoin's valuation has fallen by more than 14 percent over the past couple of weeks, but Sunday's 4 percent gain sees the cryptocurrency value at $52,601 (roughly Rs. 39.71 lakh) on Indian exchange CoinSwitch Kuber, down by 0.45 percent over the past 24 hours. Global exchanges like CoinMarketCap, meanwhile, saw the world's most popular cryptocurrency dip by 0.59 percent to be valued at $49,115 (roughly Rs. 37.08 lakh).

Bitcoin's showing has been poor over the past few weeks but Ether has suffered as much, despite a 4 percent drop off in the past week. A positive weekend sees Ether's valuation down by 0.8 percent over the past 24 hours but the second most popular cryptocurrency has managed a far better recovery from the Black Friday crash in comparison to Bitcoin. At the time of publishing, Ether is valued at $4,299 (roughly Rs. 3.25 lakh) on CoinSwitch Kuber while values on global exchanges see the second-largest crypto by market cap pegged at $4,025 (roughly Rs. 3.03 lakh), where the coin has dropped by 0.58 percent over the past 24 hours.

Gadgets 360's cryptocurrency price tracker reveals that most of the popular altcoins have also begun the week on the back foot despite a sturdy showing over Saturday and Sunday.

Tether, Polygon, Cardano, Ripple and, Uniswap all show a nominal dip in value while , Polkadot being the only altcoin to see a rise in value by 4.92 percent over the past 24 hours.

As for meme coins, Dogecoin continued to fall, in what has seen the original dog coin slip by close to 3 percent over the past week. DOGE is currently valued at $0.17 (roughly Rs. 13.49), while Shiba Inu shot up by 3.46 percent to be valued at $0.000035 (roughly Rs. 0.002664). While SHIB's value hasn't seen a quick turnover to green over the past month, the cryptocurrency has enjoyed a lot of traction in terms of mainstream adoption lately.

Cryptocurrency investors appear to be taking a wait-and-see approach to large-cap cryptocurrencies, in the wake of what has turned out to be a couple of bumpy weeks for major tokens. For almost all the major tokens, we've noticed a sell-off begin last Wednesday, following a congressional meeting between key cryptocurrency CEOs and US lawmakers to discuss the potential for regulation in the cryptocurrency market. While some of the major coins saw a positive spurt over the weekend, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Twitter handle was briefly hacked on Sunday, and a tweet claiming that India has "officially adopted Bitcoin as legal tender" was put out from it. The Prime Minister's Office later confirmed that the account was immediately secured after the matter was escalated to Twitter.

The tweet, posted after Prime Minister Modi's personal handle was hacked in the small hours, also claimed that India has officially bought 500 Bitcoins and is distributing them among its residents and shared a link, asking people to hurry up.

The hack took place after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday that emerging technologies such as cryptocurrencies should be used to empower democracy and not undermine it.

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.