Bitcoin Continues to Look Up as Ether Strides Closer to New All-Time High

Bitcoin has continued to fight against the drop that took place last Friday when news of the new coronavirus variant saw investors scamper to sell off their crypto holdings. Bitcoin is trading at $59,271 (roughly Rs. 44.46 lakh) on Indian exchange CoinSwitch Kuber, up by 0.57 percent after a steady day's trade on Tuesday, even though BTC closed at 1.97 percent lower than its opening valuation. Global exchanges like CoinMarketCap value the world's most popular cryptocurrency at $57,136 (roughly Rs. 42.86 lakh) where the cryptocurrency's value appears to have dipped by 0.49 percent in the past 24 hours. The key metric here that would make bulls happy is the fact that BTC is inching close to the $60,000 (roughly Rs. 44.99) mark after a predominantly bearish last two weeks.

While Bitcoin trades haven't moved drastically in the past 24 hours, Ether continues to rally big, up by 6.73 percent over the past 24 hours. The world's second-most popular cryptocurrency is currently valued at $4,888.6 (roughly Rs. 3.67 lakh) on CoinSwitch Kuber while values on global exchanges see the crypto pegged at $4,704.78 (roughly Rs. 3.53 lakh) with a 5.24 percent improvement over the past 24 hours. Gadgets 360's cryptocurrency price tracker reveals that the Ethereum-based coin has recovered big from the black Friday dip to move closer to a new all-time high.

There's a saying in the crypto market that when Bitcoin sneezes all the other popular coins catch a cold, and that's certainly been the case for most of the other popular coins. Tether, Chainlink, Ripple, Polkadot, Polygon, and Litecoin have all seen their values rise over the past 24 hours although gains haven't been as substantial as they were on Monday. The only coin that suffered a minor dip in valuation, meanwhile, happens to be Cardano, dropping 0.74 percent to be valued at $1.63 (roughly Rs. 122.49).

Meme coins Dogecoin and Shiba Inu have continued their forward momentum too, although the latter has been moving forward more swiftly. Dogecoin is currently trading at $0.23 (roughly Rs. 16.92) up by 0.18 percent while Shiba Inu is valued at $0.000048 (roughly Rs. 0.003589), up by 8.08 percent over the past 24 hours. As per CoinGecko, SHIB's push over the past few days has seen its value go up 14.4 percent over the past week.

Meanwhile, on the country's incoming crypto bill, the government has stated that it is on course to bring in a new Bill on cryptocurrency after it is approved by the Union Cabinet..

The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill has been included in the Lok Sabha Bulletin-Part II, as part of the government business expected to be taken up during the ongoing winter session

The Bill seeks to create a facilitative framework for the creation of the official digital currency to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for the ongoing winter session of Parliament. It also seeks to prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India, however, it allows for certain exceptions to promote the underlying technology of cryptocurrency and its uses.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also told the Lok Sabha on Monday that government has no proposal to recognise Bitcoin as a currency in the country. She also informed the House that the government does not collect data on Bitcoin transactions.

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.