Bitcoin Falls Below $72K; Solana Takes Centre Stage
By Laxmikant Khanvilkar
Virtual digital assets (VDA) witnessed a flurry of downturns in price after Bitcoin’s (BTC) refreshing its all-time high, as hotter-than-expected U.S. inflation readings place risky assets on edge before a Federal Reserve meeting next week. Stronger consumer and producer price index print suggests, the Fed will need to keep rates higher for longer to bring down inflation.
Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, which made a habit of refreshing its all-time high, almost every day, hit a new record high just below $74,000. It tumbled over 6% at one point to below $69,000. As observed in previous sessions, the sharp fall attracted buyers, causing a pullback in price. That helped cut Bitcoin’s losses to 1.4% to $71,939 currently.
Broader market too reflected similar pattern. Large altcoins including ether (ETH), ripple (XRP), matic (MATIC) and avax (AVAX) recorded loss in the last 24-hours.
Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, moved further away from its record high after completing the Dencun upgrade. It recently changed hands at $3,899, down 2%.
Bitcoin has gained 10% over the past seven days, while ether rose 7% during the same period.
Elsewhere, Solana’s native token (SOL) showed relative strength amid the market slump, notching its highest price in 26 months before the pullback. Still, SOL was slightly up 3% through the day, making it one of the best-performing assets.
The global crypto market cap decreased 2% to $2.71 trillion in the last 24 hours. On the other hand, the total crypto market volume rose 23% to $165 billion. Total volume in DeFi is currently $14.6 billion, and all stablecoins are $148.4 billion, representing 8.9% and 90%, respectively, of the total crypto market 24-hour volume. Bitcoin’s dominance is currently 51.7%, down 0.2% over the day.
The IC15 index, the barometer of the top fifteen tokens, eased 1.3% to 93,092.
Meanwhile, several analysts have begun raising alarm over bitcoin. They believe BTC could enter a period of consolidation, with a potential 20% correction on the cards, as the momentum that propelled to fresh record-highs in the past two weeks started to wane.
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