Bitcoin Falls Below $26,000 While Ether, Major Altcoins See Heavy Drops as Risk-Off Sentiment Intensifies

Bitcoin and the other leading cryptocurrencies all crashed in value over the weekend, erasing mild gains made during the prior week. Bitcoin had managed to climb into $31,000 (roughly Rs. 24 lakh) territory earlier last week but has now plunged to a value which is the lowest in 18 months as US inflation data continued to wreak havoc for risk assets and crypto alike. The price of the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation has slipped by more than 6 percent over the past day and currently hovering around the $26,000 (roughly Rs. 20 lakh) mark across global exchanges while Indian exchange CoinSwitch Kuber values Bitcoin at $27,558 (roughly Rs. 21.5 lakh), down by 5.79 percent in the past 24 hours.

On global exchanges like CoinMarketCap, Coinbase, and Binance, the price of Bitcoin stands at $25,861 (roughly Rs. 20 lakh) while CoinGecko data shows that BTC's value has dropped by over 14 percent week-to-day.

While Bitcoin falls to a new low amid risk-off markets, Ether sees a big drop too. The second most popular cryptocurrency has been struggling to move past the $2,000 (roughly Rs. 1.55 lakh) mark for a while now. At the time of publishing, Ether is valued at $1,457 (roughly Rs. 1.1 lakh) on CoinSwitch Kuber. In contrast, values on global exchanges see the crypto's value at $1,368 (roughly Rs. 1.05 lakh), where the cryptocurrency has plunged by 6.04 percent over the past 24 hours.

Ether's drop over the weekend sees the cryptocurrency's value languishing by over 25 percent when compared to last week's value, as per CoinGecko data.

Gadgets 360's cryptocurrency price tracker reveals a bloodbath for most major altcoins too — as the global crypto market capitalisation fell by 4.99 percent in the last 24 hours. BNB, Polkadot, Avalanche, Solana, Polygon, Uniswap, and Chainlink have all dropped in value with a few like Elrond even dropping to double figure losses.

Memecoins Shiba Inu and Dogecoin saw dips in value over the day too. Dogecoin is currently valued at $0.07 (roughly Rs. 5.5) after dipping by 6.57 percent in value over the last 24 hours, while, Shiba Inu is valued at $0.0000088 (roughly Rs. 0.000688), down by 1.43 percent over the past day.

Noticing the pressure on crypto markets over the weekend, cryptocurrency lending firm Celsius Network has decided to pause withdrawals and transfers between accounts due to "extreme market conditions" — a move that has only worsened the confidence of traders.

"Crypto spent much of the weekend in the reds, following Friday's CPI report that showed inflation rising. Crypto investors were largely expecting the US central bank to boost rates a half percentage point later this week in a bid to quell inflation, leading to a major risk-off sentiment in the markets. Going into 2023, we expect major central banks to continue their trajectory of quantitative tightening and policy rate hikes — effectively limiting any significant upside unless we see more convincing trends in economic recovery," the research team at CoinDCX tells Gadgets 360.

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