Bitcoin Slips to Lowest in Weeks, Ether Joins Majority Cryptocurrencies in Seeing Losses

Bitcoin sunk to its lowest value in three weeks on Thursday, March 9, as the market shuffle triggered by the Silvergate fiasco only raised more concerns among investors. With a loss of 2.05 percent, the value of Bitcoin slipped to the price point of $21,748 (Roughly Rs. 17.8 lakh) overnight. In the last 24 hours, BTC reduced in value by $407 (roughly Rs. 33,324). BTC's situation remains similar on both national as well as on international exchanges.

Ether fell by 1.85 percent to trade at $1,537 (roughly Rs. 1.25 lakh), showed the crypto price tracker by Gadgets 360. The value of ETH dipped by $15 (roughly Rs. 1,228).

The last ten days have witnessed crucial changes in the trading sentiment around the crypto assets. Both the top two cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ether fell notably from their March 1 values that stood respectively at $23,422 (roughly Rs. 19 lakh) and $1,635 (roughly Rs. 1.35 lakh).

“Investors and traders tried to digest the major negative development from last week around crypto-friendly bank Silvergate Capital. After it failed to submit its 10-K filing, the stock came under tremendous pressure as fears of bankruptcy gained traction. Major US crypto players severed banking relations while their settlement platform SEN was shut down,” Parth Chaturvedi, the Crypto Ecosystem Lead, CoinSwitch told Gadgets 360 explaining the factors that have left the crypto market shook in recent days.

Most cryptocurrencies on Thursday were met with value dips.

These include stablecoins like Ripple, USD Coin, Tether, as well as Binance USD.

Cardano, Polygon, Solana, Polkadot, as well as Litecoin — all recorded minor losses.

Memecoins Dogecoin and Shiba Inu were spotted taking different sides on the crypto price charts. While DOGE settled with losses, SHIB managed to mint peripheral profits.

Underdog altcoins Qtum and Augur joined SHIB on the green-side of the crypto chart.

The global crypto market valuation slipped by 1.54 percent over the last 24 hours. The market cap of the crypto sector currently stands at $998 billion (roughly Rs. 81,74,010 crore). At the beginning of the month, the market cap stood at $1.08 trillion (roughly Rs. 89,26,560 crore).

Amid the fluctuating volatility of the crypto sector, India has decided to bring virtual digital assets under its Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

“Finance Ministry's notification to bring VDA transactions under the PMLA is a positive step in recognising the sector. We took a conscious decision in 2021 to limit crypto movement within our KYC-compliant ecosystem to ensure transparency and compliance with the laws of the land. The new rules are introduced to prevent misuse of crypto, such as money laundering, and they do not stop the regular, KYC-verified conversion of crypto to INR,” Ashish Singhal, the CEO of CoinSwitch told Gadgets 360.

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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