Bitcoin Price Nosedives Toward $40K as Crypto Markets Cool Off: This Week’s Recap

11 months ago 6

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The cryptocurrency market seems to have been cooling off throughout the past seven days, decreasing to its current capitalization of $1.69 trillion. This comes a week after the United States Securities and Exchange Commission approved a spot Bitcoin ETF.

Undoubtedly, the above has been on everyone’s mind for the last few months. Now that the approval is finally here, the market is cooling down. Somewhat expectedly, the ETF didn’t attract hundreds of billions of inflows. In fact, the cumulative holdings of all Bitcoin ETFs as of January 18th was around $26 billion, with the lion’s share being held by Grayscale (581,274 BTC).

Meanwhile, the Commission recently postponed a resolution on Fidelity’s proposed spot ETH ETF – a move that has resulted in a decline in the asset’s price. Ethereum’s native token currently trades at around $2450, down 7.7% on the week.

In general, BTC dropped by 8.4%, SOL – by 6.1%, XRP – by 9.1%, ADA – by 15%, AVAX – by 14%, and so forth.

The best performer seems to be Binance Coin (BNB), which is up 1.3% on the week and is the only cryptocurrency in green for the period.

It appears that Ethereum-centered tokens such as L2 scaling solutions Optimism and Arbitrum are the ones that suffered the most, with both coins being down over 20% for the past seven days.

Besides that, not much seems to have happened in the industry during the week as market participants are in a full-blown consolidation mode.

It’s interesting to see if the calm will continue throughout the next week, given that we are more or less four months away from the much-anticipated Bitcoin halving – slated for late April.

Market Data

Market Cap: $1.816T | 24H Vol: $145B | BTC Dominance: 47.9%

BTC: $44,484 (+2%) | ETH: $2,663 (+18.5%) | BNB: $306 (-2.9%)

This Week’s Crypto Headlines You Better Not Miss

Here’s Why Bitcoin’s Hashrate Fell by 25% 3 Months Before Next Halving. Bitcoin’s hashrate dropped by 25% since last weekend, while data reveals that there’s been a decline amounting to 450 EH/s coming in by Tuesday. The reason might be the cold weather in Texas.

BlackRock Exec Reveals IBIT Inflows Driven by Strong Investor Interest. BlackRock’s IBIT Bitcoin ETF has seen inflows, which, according to Rachel Aguirre, are the result of considerable retail interest. Aguirre is the head of product at BlackRock U.S. iShares.

EU Tightens Regulations Regarding Crypto Transactions, Citing AML. Concerns. Regulators in the European Union are tightening the laws regarding transacting with cryptocurrencies. The reason seems to be concerns related to anti-money laundering.

Solana’s Chapter 2 Smartphone Breaks Saga’s Annual Sales Records in Hours. Following the unexpected success of the Saga phone, Solana is now creating a new one. Chapter 2, as it’s called, has set a new record for preorders, with 25,000 devices reportedly in the queue.

Tether Holds This Much Bitcoin After Late 2023 Purchase. Tether, the company behind the world’s largest stablecoin – USDT – is also one of the biggest Bitcoin holders. In fact, following its latest purchase of over $360 million in December 2023, Tether now holds $2.7 billion worth of BTC.