Altcoin Neo Defeats Bitcoin, Ether in Gains; Crypto Charts Turn Red

Bitcoin continued its streak of losses as it opened with a dip of 0.55 percent on Wednesday, January 19. The current trading price of Bitcoin is $44,984 (roughly Rs. 33.5 lakh) on Indian exchange CoinSwitch Kuber. The world's oldest cryptocurrency failed to register gains on international exchanges as well. On CoinMarketCap and Binance among other global exchanges, Bitcoin value has dropped by 0.43 percent and 0.56 percent, respectively. Each token of the most valued cryptocurrency is trading at around $41,642 (roughly Rs. 31.1 lakh).

Following Bitcoin, Ether prices also succumbed to the market fluctuations. With a loss of 2.23 percent, Ether opened trading at $3,352 (roughly Rs. 2.5 lakh) as per Gadgets 360's crypto price tracker. Ether created its last all-time high in November 2021, when its value had reached $4,643 (roughly Rs. 3.4 lakh).

Cardano, Ripple, Polkadot, and Polygon also declined in values.

The performances of meme-based dog coins Shiba Inu and Dogecoin have also remained unimpressive for weeks. Today as well, neither of them registered gains.

Making strides on the price charts, a handful of cryptocurrencies did mark a bulked-up entry into the third week of January.

Relatively lesser known altcoin Neo Price surprisingly topped the short list of gainers, adding 5.44 percent to its value. The token is currently trading at $27 (roughly Rs. 2,043).

Tether and USD Coin also managed to garner marginal pumps.

According to industry insiders, the red dominance on the crypto charts is linked with US mulling over ways to tighten noose on crypto mining given its high power consuming nature.

“In the lead up to US' House Energy and Commerce Committee's hearing on the energy use in cryptocurrency and blockchain, we may expect the crypto market to face greater uphill battles and continue its mixed performance should the US follow the footsteps of other countries that have tightened their reins over the crypto mining,” CoinDCX research team told Gadgets 360.

Recently, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that cryptocurrency challenges need to be tackled with a similar mindset among countries.

“The challenges we have been facing as a global family are also increasing. To counter these, there is a need for collective and synchronised action by every country, every global agency. These supply chain disruptions, inflation, and climate change are examples of these. Another example is a cryptocurrency,” PM Modi said while virtually addressing the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Davos Agenda earlier this week.

Meanwhile, activities in the corporate crypto space also seem to be picking pace.

Hong Kong-based crypto platform called crypto.com, for instance, has decided to expand the size of its investment arm called Crypto.com Capital to $500 million (roughly Rs. 3,722 crore) to help fund Web3.0 startups.

As per CoinMarketCap the total market cap of the crypto sector stands at $1,975,775,071,140 (roughly Rs. 147,51,136 crore).

Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency, not a legal tender and subject to market risks. The information provided in the article is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, trading advice or any other advice or recommendation of any sort offered or endorsed by NDTV. NDTV shall not be responsible for any loss arising from any investment based on any perceived recommendation, forecast or any other information contained in the article. 

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