Crypto Economy Shaves $100 Billion, Digital Asset Markets Recover Some Losses

Decentralized Exchanges Jan 21, 2023 0 110 Add to Reading List

Digital currency markets have dropped in value during the last two days as more than $100 billion was shaved off the entire crypto market valuation. Bitcoin slid to the lowest point of the year at $28,800 per unit on Thursday afternoon, and a number of other crypto-assets saw significant losses as well. Currently, as digital currency trading sessions head into the weekend, the crypto economy has regained some of the losses suffered during the last few days.

Crypto Markets Attempt to Heal

During the last 48 hours, the leading cryptocurrency in terms of market valuation has slid considerably in value. For instance, two days ago the price of bitcoin (BTC) was exchanging hands for $35,900 per coin and on Thursday afternoon (EST), the price dropped to $28,800 per unit. That’s a total loss of -19.77%, but BTC markets have rebounded since then and managed to climb right back over the $30k handle.

At the time of publication, bitcoin (BTC) is swapping at prices between $32,200 to $32,800 per coin and has a touch over a $600 billion market valuation.

The price of bitcoin (BTC) touched a new 2021 bottom touching $28,800 per unit on Thursday. Since then, BTC and a slew of other digital assets have recovered some of the losses. (BTC/USD chart on Jan. 22, 2021, @ 10:30 a.m. EST on Bitstamp via Bitcoinwisdom.io. Currently, BTC is swapping for $32,500 per unit during Friday’s crypto trading sessions.

On Friday there’s over $28 billion in global BTC trade volume, with tether (USDT) capturing 52% of all bitcoin trades today. BTC shed over 13% over the course of the week, but is still up 35% for the last 30 days. Over the 90-day span, BTC has gained 140% and 275% against the USD for 12 months. Following BTC’s lead is ethereum (ETH), as each ether is trading for $1,240 per unit. ETH’s market cap is currently hovering at around $140 billion during Friday morning’s (EST) trading sessions.

Behind tether’s (USDT) market valuation is polkadot (DOT) which is swapping for $17.36 per DOT. On January 22, XRP is currently trading for $0.27 per token and holds a $12 billion market capitalization. XRP is followed by cardano (ADA $0.34), litecoin (LTC $140.81), chainlink (LINK $21.37), bitcoin cash (BCH $448.74), and binance coin (BNB $40.57).

Bitcoin cash BCH/USDT (tether) chart on Jan. 22, 2021, @ 10:30 a.m. EST on Exchange.Bitcoin.com.

Bitcoin cash has a market valuation of around $8.1 billion and is down 12% during the last seven days. During the course of the month, BCH is up 56% and 56% for the 90-day span as well. Against the U.S. dollar over the course of the last 12 months, bitcoin cash (BCH) is up 32%.

Institutional Appetite for Bitcoin

In a note to investors, Etoro crypto analyst Simon Peters spoke about bitcoin’s (BTC) recent price movements and volatility. Peters said that lower prices could be “on the cards” but the analyst does not “believe it would last for long, [as] the cat is out of the bag with bitcoin.”

“This price movement is a perfectly natural correction, one which happens in all assets once the market has perceived them to be a little overbought,” Peters wrote. “And although the price is dropping, sitting at just over $31,000 at the time of writing, the demand for bitcoin is not.”

The Etoro crypto analyst added:

Appetite among institutional investors is still growing with the likes of investment trust Grayscale buying $600m of the crypto asset in a single day this week and Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, announced two of its funds will trade in bitcoin derivatives in the future.

Onchain Analyst Says Bitcoin Miners May Have Dumped

On Friday, the CEO of Cryptoquant, Ki-Young Ju detailed the recent sell-off may have been sparked by some mining pools selling. “This dump might have started from BTC miners in F2pool,” the Cryptoquant executive tweeted.

The onchain researcher also shared charts of the action which showed the Miners’ Position Index and miner to exchange inflows. “I got these bearish alerts yesterday,” Ki-Young Ju further added. “Miners’ Position Index went above 2.5, 569 people deposited BTC in a single block (10 min), [and] 78 miners deposited BTC in a single block (10 min).”

Growing FUD

No one truly knows what will happen from here in the land of crypto assets and the growing economy. During the last few weeks, lots of fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) has been circulating wildly while crypto-assets like bitcoin (BTC) have been bullish.

There’s been considerable regulatory scares, uncertainty surrounding the Biden administration, negative comments from Janet Yellen and Christine Lagarde, Mt Gox discussions, environmental debates over proof-of-work, tether (USDT) controversy, and the recent Ledger customer data hack. Despite all the FUD, cryptocurrency proponents still seem very optimistic about the future of crypto assets in 2021.