BTC, ETH Open Trading in Narrow Range on India’s Union Budget Announcement Day

Most of the popular cryptocurrencies opened trading with profits on Wednesday, February 1, the same day India is set to get its Union Budget for the fiscal year of 2023-2024. Bitcoin, with a small gain of 1.36 percent, is currently priced $23,129 (roughly Rs. 18.9 lakh). The oldest cryptocurrency also maintained a similar price point on international exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase. It is noteworthy, that Bitcoin has retained its value above the mark of $23,000 (roughly Rs. 18 lakh) for the second consecutive week.

Ether grew in value by 1.01 percent as it stepped into the trade zone on Wednesday. The price of the crypto asset stood at $1,583 (roughly Rs. 1.29 lakh) at the time of writing, showed the crypto price tracker by Gadgets 360.

“BTC has barely gained profits in the past seven days. ETH did rebound from its earlier lows, and its next resistance would be at the price point of $1,600 (1.30 lakh) level. Both of these top two cryptocurrencies today, continued to trade in a narrow range as investors await the US Federal Reserve's decision and India's Union Budget,” Edul Patel, CEO and Co-founder of crypto investment platform Mudrex told Gadgets 360.

Cardano, Polygon, Polkadot, and Litecoin reeled-in profits alongside meme coins Shiba Inu and Dogecoin.

Small gains also added to the prices of Avalanche, Uniswap, Cosmos, Leo, Monero, and Bitcoin Cash.

Meanwhile, a very small number of altcoins were struck with losses on Wednesday.

These include Binance Coin, Solana, Tron, Chainlink, Stellar, and Near Protocol.

Overall, the global crypto market cap rose by 1.01 percent in the last 24 hours. As per CoinMarketCap, the crypto sector valuation currently stands at $1.05 trillion (roughly Rs. 86,10,932 crore).

Despite the volatility element associated with crypto experimentations, people from around the world are getting drawn to this class of digital assets as instruments of investments.

Industry experts have time and again said that as more nations bring in laws to govern the crypto sector, its fluctuating nature will subside and crypto assets would become safer to invest in.

India, that taxes all profits churned out of crypto trading by 30 percent, is taking gradual steps into the cryptosphere.

Sector insiders have urged India's finance ministry to lower the tax bracket around crypto and make conditions favourable for people to establish rypto-related ecosystems in the nation.

“Last year, the government's taxation norms effectively protected investors' funds and exchanges. The crypto industry in India is now looking forward to a more progressive taxation system in the upcoming Union Budget. Classifying cryptocurrencies as an asset class, similar to other assets, and allowing offsetting gains against losses would encourage more retail and institutional participation. The current 1 percent TDS on every transaction might discourage the adoption of cryptocurrencies. It could be a great move for the government to address these issues,” Patel from Mudrex noted.

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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