Bitcoin, Ether Begin Month on a High as Wider Crypto Market Witnesses Reasonable Gains for All Major Altcoins

Bitcoin has closed January with a bit of resurgence but January's declines have put the digital coin on pace for its worst start to a year since the dawn of the 2018 “crypto winter.” The world's most valuable cryptocurrency has had a fairly good seven days, steadying ship above $38,000 (roughly Rs. 30 lakh), and market factors seem to suggest that the $40,000 (roughly Rs. 30 lakh) mark may not far off with BTC climbing yet again on Monday. Bitcoin's value is currently at $41,114 (roughly Rs. 30.5 lakh), up by 2.19 percent over the past 24 hours on Indian exchange CoinSwitch Kuber.

Meanwhile, on global exchanges, the price of the most popular cryptocurrency stood at $38,500 (roughly Rs. 29 lakh), up by 3.69 percent over the past 24 hours.

Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, has had a good week too, adding over 12 percent in value over the past week. At the time of publishing, Ether was valued at $2,929 (roughly Rs. 2 lakh) on CoinSwitch Kuber while values on global exchanges saw the crypto's value hover around the $2,700 (roughly Rs. 2 lakh) mark at $2,738 (roughly Rs. 2 lakh), where the coin rose by close to 9 percent over the past 24 hours. Compared to the price of Ether a month ago, CoinGecko data reveals that the cryptocurrency still stands at a 27 percent dip.

Gadgets 360's cryptocurrency price tracker reveals a rather positive showing amongst altcoins to begin February. Polygon,Binance Coin, Solana, Avalanche, Cosmos, Polkadot, and Elrond were among the biggest gainers, alongside metaverse tokens Decentraland (MANA), The Sandbox (SAND) and Enjin Coin (ENJ).

Meme coins haven't had a very good start to the year, just like most other altcoins, but the past week has been better for both SHIB and DOGE — the two most sought-after meme coins amongst others. Dogecoin is currently valued at $0.15 (roughly Rs. 11.5) after rising by 2.55 percent over the last 24 hours, while, Shiba Inu is valued at $0.000023 (roughly Rs. 0.002), up close to 4 percent over the past 24 hours.

"BTC's price can now attract short-term buyers. The support price for BTC holds above $37,000 (roughly Rs. 27.5 lakh), and resistance stands between $40,000 (roughly Rs. 30 lakh) to $45,000 (roughly Rs. 30.5 lakh). According to the market cap, the other top cryptocurrencies such as Solana, Terra, Polkadot, Cosmos, Uniswap, and many other coins have gained more than a decent growth than the previous day," Edul Patel, CEO and co-founder of crypto investment firm Mudrex told Gadgets 360.

While the wider crypto market is expected to continue to experience volatility, Visa, the global payment network company, has said during an earnings call that its customers made $2.5 billion (roughly Rs. 18,685 crore) in payments using its crypto-linked cards during the first fiscal quarter of 2022. That volume, when put into perspective, already accounts for over 70 percent of all crypto-card volume throughout the fiscal year of 2021 that ended on September 30, 2021, signalling increased adoption of digital asset payments over the past few months.

The government of El Salvador, meanwhile, rejected a recommendation by the International Monetary Fund to drop Bitcoin as legal tender in the Central American country. Treasury Minister Alejandro Zelaya angrily said that “no international organisation is going to make us do anything, anything at all.”

“Countries are sovereign nations, and they take sovereign decisions about public policy,” he said. The IMF recommended last week that El Salvador dissolve the $150 million (roughly Rs. 1,120 crore) trust fund it created when it made the cryptocurrency legal tender and return any of those unused funds to its treasury.

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.