The cryptocurrency market is correcting downward this week. BTC is currently trading at 49000.00 (–12.6%), ETH is at 2150.00 (–3.2%), and BNB is at 460.00 (–4.5%). The fourth place in terms of capitalization was taken by USDT, which is traded at the area of 1.0008 (–0.01%). The XRP token is at 1.0000 –-34.8%). The total market capitalization fell to $1.765T. The share of BTC in the market reached 51.6%.
According to experts, the fall in the market had several reasons. First of all, this is a serious decrease in the hashrate of the Bitcoin network due to problems with the supply of electricity in the Chinese province of Xinjiang, where most of the mining pools that mine BTC are based.
This led to a slowdown in the creation of new blocks and an increase in the queue of unconfirmed transactions. Another reason for the decline was information that the US Treasury Department may have claims against several financial institutions that laundered money using cryptocurrencies but there was no official confirmation of this.
At the end of the week, the sale intensified amid data that US President Joe Biden intends to raise the capital gains tax, and in some cases, it could be more than 50%. The tax is supposed to apply to businessmen who made $1M in less than a year. With a serious increase in BTC, many crypto whales can fall under this condition.
It is worth noting that the ETH token was traded atypical for the market during the week. Before the correction of its prices, it renewed historical highs in the area of 2300.00. The strengthening of the coin was due to the approval by the Canadian Securities Commission of Ontario of the launch of ETFs on ETH from CI Global Asset Management and Evolve ETFs.
The new instruments started trading on Tuesday and caused serious excitement in the market. Also, the rise in prices was facilitated by the increased interest in the currency of institutional investors. According to Block Research, open interest in ETH options surged to 3.57B last week.
The XRP coin declined in line with the market, as new data on Ripple’s success in the court of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC ) have not been reported. Investors are currently awaiting a response from the judges to the request of Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen to close the case and reimburse the company for costs.
Meanwhile, the SEC is trying to obtain regulatory data from the countries where Ripple operates to strengthen its legal position and continue the proceedings. Also, Dogecoin, which many consider to be a speculative bubble, rose to the top five largest cryptocurrencies in terms of capitalization during the week but failed to hold its position and rolled back to seventh place.
The ability to pay for goods in this currency this week was added by the American online electronics store Newegg.
From other news, it is worth noting the launch of the function of buying, selling, and storing cryptocurrencies by the mobile service of PayPal Venmo.
Within a few weeks, the new opportunity will be available to 70M customers of the payment giant.
The Treasury Department and the Bank of England have set up a joint working group to assess the potential for creating a national digital currency. The group will need to study the experience of other countries in establishing CBDCs.
Next week, quotes for most cryptocurrencies may consolidate or continue their downward correction.
