Bitcoin, Ether Prices Barely Move as Market Fails to Gather Momentum

Bitcoin's movement in the wider crypto market has been well off last week's high as investors worry about supply chain issues, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, rising inflation and a slump in global technology markets. That said, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation did manage to not dip in value further over the past 24 hours. Bitcoin witnessed a 1.34 percent rise in value through Wednesday and is currently at $45,323 (roughly Rs. 35 lakh), up by 0.15 percent over the past 24 hours on Indian exchange CoinSwitch Kuber. Meanwhile, on global exchanges, the price of the most popular cryptocurrency stands at $41,901 (roughly Rs. 30 lakh) down by an insignificant 0.01 percent over the past 24 hours.

Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation show an almost identical pattern through Wednesday. The Ethereum-based cryptocurrency witnessed a rise of 1.42 percent through Wednesday and has managed to stay in the green on Thursday morning. At the time of publishing, Ether is valued at $3,384 (roughly Rs. 2.5 lakh) on CoinSwitch Kuber while values on global exchanges see the crypto pegged lower at $3,126 (roughly Rs. 2 lakh), where the coin climbed 0.18 percent over the past 24 hours.

Bitcoin and Ether's weak performance has had a rather negative trickle-down effect for altcoins. Gadgets 360's cryptocurrency price tracker shows that most popular altcoins witnessed a drop in value over the past 24 hours. Ripple, Polkadot,Chainlink, Uniswap, and Polygon. Meanwhile, Litecoin, Tron, and Monero were among the only exceptions to the norm, charting nominal gains in the past 24 hours.

Meme coins did see a bit of a resurgence over the past week in general, but this week hasn't been a very positive one for either Dogecoin or Shiba Inu. Dogecoin is currently valued at $0.17 (roughly Rs. 15) after dipping by 1.28 percent over the last 24 hours, while, Shiba Inu is valued at $0.000030 (roughly Rs. 0.002230), down 1.02 percent over the past 24 hours. SHIB has been witnessing a particularly troublesome week, down by 13 percent over the past week alone, as per CoinGecko data.

Bitcoin has dropped more than one-third of its value since hitting a record high in November 2021, and BTC holders who bought near the peak of the market are now faced with unrealised losses and if market factors are anything to go by, volatility is expected to continue. According to on-chain data provider, Glassnode, BTC 5.7 million, or 30 percent of the coins in circulation, are currently in the red, which suggests that they're of no worth, less than what their owner paid for them.

Glassnode says that the current level is historically and psychologically an important, as it has been noticed since May 2020, that every time the percentage of Bitcoin supply "in profit" has dipped close to or below the 70 percent barrier, the market has been able to mark a turnaround. Although that doesn't necessarily spell a turnover this time around, it could be a wake-up call for Bitcoin bulls.

Meanwhile, Intel, the semiconductor manufacturing giant, could be making a bigger push into the world of cryptocurrency at the upcoming International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) next month where the company plans to present a new “Bonanza Mine chip” which is likely an energy-efficient Bitcoin ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) geared towards mining.

There's little information to go on thus far, but Intel has a slot scheduled under the Highlighted Chip Releases category for February 23, as per a docket with presentations scheduled to take place from offices in Hillsborough, Santa Clara and San Diego, California.

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