Bitcoin, Ether See Red as Wider Crypto Market Falls Prey to Macro Economic Factors

Bitcoin and the wider crypto market suffered yet another upset to efforts of starting a bull run as global market capitalisation dropped significantly to mark major losses for most coins. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation did manage a positive run through Thursday but a rough start on Friday appears to have wiped away all the gains from the previous day, and more. Bitcoin's value is currently at $42,270 (roughly Rs. 30 lakh), down by 6.49 percent over the past 24 hours on Indian exchange CoinSwitch Kuber.

Meanwhile, on global exchanges, the price of the most popular cryptocurrency fell below the $40,000 (roughly Rs. 30 lakh) mark, marking its lowest level in more than five months. As per CoinMarketCap, BTC is valued at $38,909 (roughly Rs. 30 lakh) down by 7.03 percent over the past 24 hours.

Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation had an equally torrid showing. The Ethereum-based cryptocurrency witnessed a rise of 2.81 percent through Wednesday only to see get wiped away by Friday morning. At the time of publishing, Ether is valued at $3,120 (roughly Rs. 2.5 lakh) on CoinSwitch Kuber while values on global exchanges see the crypto's value drop below the $3,000 (roughly Rs. 2 lakh) mark at $2,855 (roughly Rs. 2 lakh), where the coin dropped 8.26 percent over the past 24 hours.

Gadgets 360's cryptocurrency price tracker shows that most popular altcoins witnessed a serious rattling too, with stablecoins being the only gainers on the day. Cardano, Ripple, Polkadot, Chainlink, Uniswap, and Polygon all dropped in value. Tether and USD Coin made minimal gains.

Meme coins haven't had a very good week and Friday's wider market pullback saw bigger dips for Dogecoin and Shiba Inu. Dogecoin is currently valued at $0.16 (roughly Rs. 10) after dipping by 6.47 percent over the last 24 hours, while, Shiba Inu is valued at $0.000028 (roughly Rs. 0.002), down 5.85 percent over the past 24 hours. As per CoinGecko data, both DOGE and SHIB have dropped over 10 percent in value over the past 7 days.

"Bitcoin and Ether fell below $40,000 (roughly Rs. 30 lakh) and $2,900 (roughly Rs. 2 lakh), which is the lowest in the past ten days. After jumping over $43,000 (roughly Rs. 30 lakh), BTC went back to the same level where it started. The decline in the trend hits the investor's weakening sentiment. ETH and other top altcoins by market cap rose decently before the dip. The total crypto volume also decreased by nearly 12 percent in the past 24 hours. This downward trend can be attributed to economic changes and interest rates," CEO and co-founder of crypto investment firm Mudrex, Edul Patel, told Gadgets 360.

These recent big drops to Ethereum and Bitcoin come amid continued surging inflation, a disappointing December jobs report, and the release of minutes from the US Federal Reserve Board's December meeting, which signalled the central bank would begin slowing down measures to prop up the economy as it continues to improve.

That said, the last 24 hours have also seen tech giants take a step forward towards wider crypto adoption. Twitter on Thursday announced the launch of a tool through which users can showcase non-fungible tokens (NFTs)as their profile pictures, tapping into a digital collectibles craze that has exploded over the past year. The feature, available on iOS to users of the company's Twitter Blue subscription service, connects their Twitter accounts to cryptocurrency wallets where the users store NFT holdings.

Twitter displays the NFT profile pictures as hexagons, differentiating them from the standard circles available to other users. Tapping on the pictures prompts details about the art and its ownership to appear.

In a bid to ramp up research work in the Blockchain sector, Google Labs has appointed a new team to focus on the up-and-coming tech. Google Labs is an incubator that tests and develops new-tech developments and projects, parented by the search engine giant. Shivakumar Venkataraman, an engineering vice president at the company has been chosen to head this new group.

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.