Bitcoin Climbs to $31,600, While Altcoins Aim to End May on a High

Crypto bulls went to work to begin the week after Bitcoin closed a record ninth week in the red on Sunday. In line with stock market movements in Europe and Asia, Bitcoin and a host of popular altcoins enjoyed sharp spikes in value after China said it will ease Covid curbs. The price of the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation rallied by close to 5 percent through Monday with figures holding up strong on early Tuesday too. In numerical terms, BTC is currently around the $31,600 (roughly Rs. 24.5 lakh) mark across global exchanges while Indian exchange CoinSwitch Kuber values Bitcoin at $33,269 (roughly Rs. 26 lakh), up by 4.79 percent in the past 24 hours.

On global exchanges like CoinMarketCap, Coinbase, and Binance the price of Bitcoin stands at $31,651 (roughly Rs. 24.5 lakh) up by 4.51 percent in value over the past 24 hours. As per CoinGecko data, BTC's value has already moved way higher than where it stood last week, up 8.7 percent week-to-day.

While Bitcoin has held up well over the course of a difficult month, Ether hasn't been holding up too well. That said, the second most popular cryptocurrency has begun the week on a strong footing. At the time of publishing, Ether is valued at $2,084 (roughly Rs. 1.6 lakh) on CoinSwitch Kuber while values on global exchanges see the crypto's value at $1,983 (roughly Rs. 1.5 lakh), where the cryptocurrency has moved up by 5.85 percent over the past 24 hours.

Ether's strong showing over the past 24 hours means that the cryptocurrency's value has moved up 0.6 percent over last week's value, as per CoinGecko data.

Gadgets 360's cryptocurrency price tracker reveals a sight of green for most of the better-known altcoins — as the global crypto market capitalisation moved up by 4.26 percent in the last 24 hours. Cardano, Polygon, Litecoin, Uniswap, and Chainlink were among the bigger gainers, while metaverse tokens like Decentraland did fairly well too.

Memecoins Shiba Inu and Dogecoin saw little movement although DOGE fared better. Dogecoin is currently valued at $0.09 (roughly Rs. 7.5) after gaining 1.69 percent in value over the last 24 hours, while, Shiba Inu is valued at $0.000013 (roughly Rs. 0.000971), down by 0.21 percent over the past day.

Meanwhile, the Indian government has stated that it will soon finalise a consultation paper on cryptocurrencies with inputs from various stakeholders and institutions, including the World Bank and the IMF, Economic Affairs Secretary Ajay Seth said on Monday. He also underlined the need for a global response to deal with issues concerning cryptocurrencies as these operate in the virtual world. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on many occasions has expressed its reservation about such virtual currencies citing a threat to macroeconomic stability.

Speaking on the sidelines of the curtain raiser event of 'Iconic Week' as part of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav to be celebrated by the Finance Ministry, Seth said the consultation paper is fairly ready.

"We have consulted not just the domestic institutional stakeholders but also organisations like the World Bank and the IMF. So, we hope that we will soon be in a position to finalise our consultation paper," he said.

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.