Bitcoin, Ether Lose Positive Momentum While Most Altcoins Suffer From Serious Profit Booking

Bitcoin has had a rough run over the past 24 hours as Wednesday saw a fair bit of profit booking across the market, leading to a substantial dip for BTC and a host of other altcoins. The world's most valuable cryptocurrency has had a fairly good week prior to Wednesday, steadying ship above $38,000 (roughly Rs. 30 lakh), but Bitcoin's poor showing over the past day appears to have wiped off some of the progress made over the past 10 days. Bitcoin's value currently stands at $39,722 (roughly Rs. 25 lakh), down by 3.84 percent over the past 24 hours on Indian exchange CoinSwitch Kuber.

Meanwhile, on global exchanges, the price of the most popular cryptocurrency stood at $36,948 (roughly Rs. 25 lakh) down by 4.01 percent over the past 24 hours.

Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, was having a good week, too, although Wednesday did see the crypto asset lose a bit of that bullish momentum. At the time of publishing, Ether is valued at $2,866 (roughly Rs. 2 lakh) on CoinSwitch Kuber while values on global exchanges see the crypto's value hover around the $2,700 (roughly Rs. 2 lakh) mark at $2,666 (roughly Rs. 2 lakh), where the coin dipped by close to 3.48 percent over the past 24 hours. Comparing it to Ether price a week ago, CoinGecko data reveals that the cryptocurrency's value still stands at a 7.9 percent profit.

Gadgets 360's cryptocurrency price tracker reveals more profit-booking amongst altcoins. Cardano, Solana, Avalanche, Polygon, Terra, Binance Coin, Cosmos, Polkadot, and Chainlink all heavily dipped in value, while metaverse tokens Decentraland (MANA), The Sandbox (SAND), and Enjin Coin (ENJ) also witnessed a run in red.

Meme coins haven't had a very good start to the month either, just like most other altcoins, as Wednesday saw dips for both SHIB and DOGE — the two most sought-after meme coins amongst others. Dogecoin is currently valued at $0.14 (roughly Rs. 11) after shedding 3.13 percent over the last 24 hours, while Shiba Inu is valued at $0.000022 (roughly Rs. 0.002), down by 4.61 percent over the past 24 hours.

While the wider crypto market is expected to continue to experience volatility, India's Finance Secretary TV Somanathan told ANI that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ether will never attain status of legal tender, adding that only the digital Rupee issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) would be a legal tender.

"Digital rupee will be backed by RBI which will never default. Money will be of RBI but the nature will be digital. The digital rupee issued by RBI will be the legal tender. We can purchase non-digital assets with the digital rupee like we purchase an ice cream or other things using our wallet or payments through UPI platform," the Finance Secretary was quoted by ANI as saying.

Meanwhile, Alphabet's Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai made his first public comments on Web3, saying that he is watching the blockchain space and looking at how Google's parent company can add value to the development of the technology that's being embraced by many of his Silicon Valley peers.

“Any time there is innovation, I find it exciting,” Pichai said on Tuesday in response to a question about the technology on Alphabet's earnings call. “I think it's something we want to support the best we can.”

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.