Bitcoin Rally Stops as Value Falls Below $57,000, Ether Leads Altcoin Struggle

Bitcoin and its bullish rally over the past week to set a new all-time high of over $65,000 (roughly Rs. 48,93,817) may have hit a speed bump as the world's most popular cryptocurrency ended Tuesday at a dip of over 1.65 percent. Valued at a five-month high of over $59,800 (roughly Rs. 44,77,977) on CoinSwitch on Tuesday morning, Bitcoin, at the time of writing, was trading at $58,640 (roughly Rs. 44,19,655) with a valuation on Binance and CoinMarketCap being considerably lower. Although this does look like the end of a massive rally for the cryptocurrency, with a 94 percent year-to-date rise in valuation, it shouldn't be long before we see a positive bounce.

Meanwhile, Ether and other altcoins seem to have had a better showing mid-week although Tuesday's trade ended bleak for most crypto assets. Gadgets 360's cryptocurrency price tracker shows that Ether did close at a 1.47 percent drop, but has almost recovered from that on Wednesday morning, trading at Rs. 2,76,741 (roughly $3,672) on CoinSwitch Kuber on Wednesday. The second most-valued cryptocurrency hasn't had a steady run like Bitcoin, but the Ethereum-based asset has had a positive start to the day.

Lower down the pecking order of altcoins, Cardano, Tether, Ripple, and Polkadot all fell by a couple of percentage points on average. Dogecoin fell by 3.27 percent to begin Wednesday's trade at Rs. 18 (roughly $0.24). SHIB fans haven't had a great day either, with values falling by 9.89 percent.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said recently at a conference that cryptocurrencies will be regulated by governments sooner or later and that he personally thinks Bitcoin is "worthless". That said, the CEO of America's largest bank has assured that he now has no problem offering investment options to his Bitcoin-hungry clients given their high interest in cryptocurrencies. JPMorgan began offering its wealth management clients access to crypto assets in July earlier this year.

Dimon, who has been a vocal critic of the digital currency for some time now, appeared to have no immediate impact on Bitcoin trade prices, but the cryptocurrency did see a mood-dampening dip towards the end of the day.

In related news, the NFT rage appears to have moved on to Chess, as grandmaster Magnus Carlsen became the first person to be awarded an NFT trophy for winning an international chess tournament.