Bitcoin, Ethereum drop; Solana rises 5%

New Delhi: The digital token market continued to trade lower on Monday amid rising tensions between Russia-Ukraine and continued inflationary fears. A possible exploit of OpenSea, the leading NFT platform, may have further frightened investors away from crypto.

Barring Solana and Terra, all other top digital tokens were trading in lower. Avalanche tanked about 5 per cent, whereas Bitcoin dropped 2 per cent to below $40,000. Among gainers, Solana zoomed about 5 per cent.

The global crypto market cap dropped about 2 per cent to $1.78 trillion mark. On the contrary, the total crypto market volume jumped more than 31 per cent to $70.68 billion.

What’s Cooking in India
As investors explore ways to save tax on their cryptocurrency investments, crypto platforms are introducing new products. They are looking to earn interest on their crypto deposits or draw loans against cryptocurrencies, without attracting the new tax.

Crypto experts estimate that between 30 and 50 Indian crypto entrepreneurs, like Polygon’s founders, now run their blockchain and crypto startups out of Dubai and Singapore, stung by a 2018 circular by the RBI which banned banks from dealing with the digital asset.

Expert Take
The cryptocurrency and the stock market have taken a tumble again due to geopolitical risks. The markets had slightly recovered when news of the Russian army withdrawing had surfaced, however, the situation has not improved, said WazirX Trade Desk.

The fear in the markets has started to set in after the United States mentioned that an invasion is likely to happen, he added. “On the other hand, Bitcoin’s fundamentals are improving. The Bitcoin hash rate is hitting an all-time high, adoption is on the uptrend and the need for Bitcoin is on the rise,” it added.

Global updates

• A simmering dispute over cryptocurrency regulation in Russia heated up on Friday as the finance ministry submitted legislative proposals that clashed with the central bank’s demand for a blanket ban.

• Separately, in a late Saturday tweet, OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer wrote, “32 users thus far have signed a malicious payload from an attacker, and some of their NFTs were stolen.” Finzer suggested that a fraudulent website may be to blame.

• The Canadian government’s efforts to choke off the flow of funds to protesting truckers in Canada illustrate why cryptocurrencies exist, Ethereum founder VItalik Buterin said.

• In a other news, a private class action lawsuit against participants in Canada’s “freedom convoy” has successfully secured an injunction freezing funds raised via crypto donations.