On Friday, May 19, Bitcoin experienced a drop of 1.67 percent to trade at a price of $26,785 (about Rs. 22 lakh) on both domestic and foreign markets. In the last 24 hours, Bitcoin’s value decreased by $542 (approximately Rs. 44,850), as the US considered raising its debt ceiling. The US has been experiencing a financial crisis that has been made worse by significant debts that the nation has built up since 2009. The US is considering changing the cap on capital borrowing from organisations which include the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund in addition to others in order to handle the situation. The debt ceiling is the name given to this limit.
The value of ether decreased by 0.91 percent to trade at $1,800, or around Rs. 1.48 lakh. Ether, the second-most valuable cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin, dropped by $23 (or about Rs. 1,903) over last day.
According to a media website, Edul Patel, CEO of crypto investment firm Mudrex stated that, “Bitcoin experienced a downward trend primarily influenced by ongoing debt ceiling discussions in Washington, DC., and other regulatory developments. While Bitcoin has registered an eight percent decrease month-to-date, it still boasts a remarkable 61 percent increase year-to-date. Similarly, Ethereum has mirrored Bitcoin’s performance, declining by over 1 percent in the past 24 hours. Ethereum has faced setbacks in the past five days, resulting in a five percent decrease month-to-date and a significant 62 percent decrease overall.”
The price movement of BTC and ETH typically sets a tone for the future direction of other cryptocurrencies.
Following BTC and ETH on the loss trail were Binance Coin, Cardano, Dogecoin, Solana, Polygon, Litecoin, Polkadot, and Tron.
Shiba Inu, Avalanche, Chainlink, Uniswap, Cosmos, and Cronos were also affected by price drops.
In the past 24 hours, there has been a small selling pressure on the cryptocurrency market. At $1.12 trillion, or roughly Rs 92,72,681 crore, the market value of all cryptocurrencies is down 1.34 percent over the past 24 hours.
Tether, USD Coin, Ripple, Binance USD, LEO, Stellar, and Bitcoin Cash all saw modest gains.
Parth Chaturvedi, Investments Lead, CoinSwitch Ventures stated, “In token-specific action, Ripple (XRP) is launching a platform for CBDCs, enabling central banks, governments, and financial institutions to issue their unique forms of digital currency. XRP is trading around $0.4 (roughly Rs. 33), up 4.1 percent in the last 24 hours.”
“The crypto fear and greed index is down 3 points, currently in the neutral zone with 48 points. This hints toward a cautious overhang amongst investors,” he added.
Insiders from the Indian cryptocurrency industry have also noted that bears in the Bitcoin market may profit from the unpredictable nature of the market.
“The outcome of the expiry will determine Bitcoin’s short-term performance, with potential effects on its price. Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty level skyrockets to a record high, accompanied by a surge in hash rate to 350 TH/s. This indicates the strengthening security and resilience of the Bitcoin network, bolstered by a greater number of miners contributing their computational power to validate transactions and uphold the decentralized nature of the blockchain,” the research team at CoinDCX stated.
In other news, Bitcoin Frogs, the non-fungible token (NFT) introduced on Bitcoin Ordinals, surpassed even well-known collections like Bored Apes as the most actively traded collection in the previous 24 hours as of yesterday.