Bitcoin, Ether Among Majority of Cryptocurrencies to Open Last Day of 2021 With Gains, Only Few See Dips

Stepping into the last day of the year 2021, the crypto charts looked healthy and bathed in green. Bitcoin, with a gain of 0.73 percent, kept its trading value at $51,007 (roughly Rs. 37.9 lakh) as per Indian exchange CoinSwitch Kuber. On international exchanges such as CoinMarketCap as well as Binance, the world's oldest cryptocurrency is trading at around $47,209 (roughly Rs. 35 lakh) per token. The recent days have been rough for Bitcoin that dropped from its all-time high of $69,000 (roughly Rs. 51 lakh) last month and has struggled to maintain even gradual growth since.

Ether followed Bitcoin to register a gain of 1.61 percent. As per Gadgets 360's crypto price tracker, each Ether token is presently trading at $4,060 (roughly Rs. 3,01,877).

Cardano, Ripple, Polkadot, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and Polygon are among other popular cryptocurrencies that registered gains along with Bitcoin and Ether.

A small bunch of coins like Tether, USD Coin, and Bitcoin Cash failed to pump up and witnessed losses on the last day of 2021.

Industry experts have predicted that as Bitcoin strengthens its dominance with small but continuous gains, altcoins will witness growth in the near future.

“The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, Bitcoin, stayed above the $47,000 (roughly Rs. 35 lakh) mark and Ether hovered above $3,700 (roughly Rs. 2.75 lakh). Most of the top altcoins remained range-bound following the cues from the two largest cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin dominance signals that the altcoins could likely have a better session over the coming days,” Edul Patel, CEO and Co-founder of crypto investment firm Mudrex told Gadgets 360.

The year 2021 emerged as a milestone for the crypto space.

El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender in September, validating the crypto space in a significant manner.

The very first Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) was launched at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in October, which had pushed Bitcoin price to a new all-time high.

This year, crypto-related companies also managed to gather more than $30 billion (roughly Rs. 2,27,617 crore) from venture capital funds, quadrupling from 2018.

Industries backed and based on cryptocurrencies have witnessed a major global explosion, making the space “too large to ignore”, a report by the Bank of America (BofA) said earlier this year.

Mergers and acquisitions in the crypto space have also spiked from $940 million (roughly Rs. 7,025 crores) in 2020 to $4.2 billion (Rs. 31,390 crores) in 2021, the BoFA's report shows.

In the US, cryptocurrencies like Shiba Inu and Dogecoin also gained adoption as payment options for day-to-day purchases like movie tickets and gift cards.

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.