The Crypto bear run is finally ending, giving investors some respite from the long crypto winter. According to coinmarketcap.com, Bitcoin rose nearly three percent over the past seven days, and Ethereum gained 13 percent in value, making them the largest and second-largest digital token by market cap.
Market data also shows an uptick in prices and what appears to be a gradual bull run as the total crypto market cap rose from $1.03 trillion to $1.1 trillion over the previous seven days. On Friday, the m-cap peaked at $1.14 trillion. “The traded volumes continued to witness double-digit gains for the third consecutive day for the cryptocurrency market. Combining this stat with the third consecutive day of gains suggests that market participants are finally coming out of the bear phase,” Edul Patel, CEO, and co-founder of Mudrex, told Business Standard.
“Over the past week, Ether has been up by almost 20 percent. And with Bitcoin dominance steadily falling, it could signal a bull phase for altcoins,” he added. Altcoins are digital tokens considered by many to be alternatives to Bitcoin. However, Bitcoin has experienced a market nosedive since June 12, with Bitcoin’s market share falling from 47 percent to 40 percent. On the other hand, Ethereum’s market cap has risen from 16.27 percent to 19 percent.
However, the crypto market in India saw some significant developments last week. First, WazirX, one of the largest crypto exchanges in India, was raided by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on alleged money laundering charges. Earlier in 2019, Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world, announced that it was acquiring WazirX, but in light of the recent event, the deal could not go forward. Meanwhile, the heads of the two companies have been waging a war of words on Twitter regarding the ownership of WazirX.
Another development came as a report by the United Nations (UN). The organization said cryptocurrency rose at an ‘unprecedented rate’ during the Covid-19 pandemic, with 7.3 percent of Indians owning these digital assets, the 7th highest in the world. Ironically, the highest crypto investors came from the two countries at war, Ukraine and Russia.
The UN cautioned that emerging economies should be careful in dealing with these assets due to the lack of regulations on cryptocurrency. It said, “If cryptocurrencies continue to grow as a means of payment, and even replace domestic currencies unofficially, the “monetary sovereignty” of countries could be jeopardized.”
However, Minal Thukral, executive vice-president of growth and strategy at CoinDCX, does not share the sentiment. In a statement, he reaffirmed that the fate of crypto and web3 looked ‘brilliant’ in India. “As per the UN report, crypto shows a dramatic development in recent years which is a positive sign given that 65 crore Indians (~50%) have access to the internet now. Therefore, crypto innovations will continue to grow in India irrespective of the constant fear around increasing rates, inflation, etc.,” Thukral said.
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