Bitcoin Exceeds $25,700, Investors Warned to Tread Cautiously After Crypto Bank Shutdowns

Bitcoin recorded its highest price for the year of 2023 on Friday, March 17. With a hike of 5.70 percent, the value of BTC reached the price point of $25,653 (roughly Rs. 21 lakh). The world's oldest cryptocurrency climbed above the mark of the $25,000 (roughly Rs. 20 lakh) internationally as well. In the last 24 hours, Bitcoin value escalated by $1,313 (roughly Rs. 10.8 lakh). BTC's price rally set the course for majority cryptocurrencies to be on the profit-making side of the crypto chart.

Ether value spiked by 3.65 percent on Friday. As per Gadgets 360's crypto price tracker, the price of ETH stands at $1,707 (Roughly Rs. 1.40 lakh). Over the last day, ETH prices notably rose by $64 (roughly Rs. 5,280).

“It was an interesting 24 hours. The cryptocurrency market seemed to head towards a correction mode. However, soon after the announcement of the Arbitrum airdrop, trading volumes started shooting up. Since, this rally is fuelled by emotions because of the Arbitrum airdrop announcement, it is important to steer clear of bull traps,” Edul Patel, CEO of Mudrex told Gadgets 360.

A wide array of altcoins recorded profits including Binance Coin, Cardano, Polygon, Solana, and Polkadot.

Dogecoin and Shiba Inu also reeled in gains alongside Tron, Litecoin, Avalanche, Uniswap, and Cosmos.

Speaking to Gadgets 360, Rajagopal Menon, Vice President, WazirX, sounded an alert similar to that of Mudrex's CEO — directed at India's investor community. “User confidence in crypto seems to have reached a new high since the onset of the bear market as scepticism around fund safety takes precedence for users,” Menon noted.

As per CoinMarketCap, the overall crypto market valuation spiked to $1.11 trillion (roughly Rs. 91,64,447 crore) with a rise of 4.48 percent in the last 24 hours.

Amid a largely volatile market sentiment, a bunch of cryptocurrencies did settle with losses on Friday. These include stablecoins such as Tether, USD Coin, Binance USD as well as Chainlink, Leo, and Bitcoin Cash among others.

Last week witnessed a major decoupling of crypto from traditional finance, and despite the banking crisis spreading like wildfire, crypto prices rallied strongly.

“Many observers are calling this a pivotal moment in crypto's journey as an asset class,” Parth Chaturvedi, Crypto Ecosystem Lead, CoinSwitch told Gadgets 360. “Interestingly the sharpest rise was witnessed in BTC prices (ETH is up by eight percent in comparison), as investors seem to view it as an alternative to TradFi's failure”.

Chaturvedi also chimed-in with fellow industry insiders to advise the investor community to tread cautiously in the shaky market.

“Effectively in the last two weeks, three most prominent crypto-friendly banks in the US: Silvergate, SVB, and Signature, have been stifled, with access to US banking routes getting more difficult for crypto players. This will have a long-term liquidity impact and might also result in the offshoring of businesses to more crypto-friendly jurisdictions like Switzerland, Hong Kong, the UK, and Dubai,” Chaturvedi added.

Closer home, CRE8, an Indian Rupee denominated Virtual Digital Asset (crypto) index, was down 14.88 percent in the past 7 days. The Index value stood at Rs. 3,070.02 at 8 AM, March 17, 2022.

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.