Bitcoin Holds $40,500 Level; Ether, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu Fall As Russia-Ukraine War Rages

Major cryptocurrencies tumbled on Monday amid Fed interest rate tightening even as the Russia-Ukraine war continued to rage. The US Federal Reserve had raised interest rate by 0.25 percent in its monetary policy decisions last week.

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, after opening higher, was trading 2.6 percent lower at $40,841 at 9:30 am, according to CoinDesk. The bitcoin market cap has gained 6.75 percent to $776 in the past 24 hours. However, the cryptocurrency has lost more than 11 percent since the beginning of the year.

Ethereum, the second-largest virtual currency, also shed 2.86 percent to trade at $2,847. The cryptocurrency, which is linked to ethereum blockchain, has appreciated nearly 11 percent in the past seven days, but lost more than 22 percent year-to-date.

Meme crypto Dogecoin fell 2.32 percent at $0.119, while Shiba Inu lost 4.66 percent to trade at $0.000023. Solana, which witnessed substantial interest from the crypto traders last year, also shed 3.35 percent to trade at $87.73.

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Meanwhile, the government is working on the classification of cryptocurrency as goods or services under the GST law so that tax can be levied on the entire value of transactions. Currently, 18 percent GST is levied only on services provided by the crypto exchanges and is categorised as financial services.

According to a PTI report, GST officers were of the view that cryptos, by nature, are similar to lottery, casinos, betting, gambling, horse racing, which have 28 percent of GST on the entire value. Besides, GST is levied at 3 percent on the entire transaction value in case of gold.

Last week, US lawmakers had introduced a bill that would enable the president to sanction foreign cryptocurrency firms doing business with sanctioned Russian entities and prevent them from transacting with U.S. customers. While the bill is unlikely to become law anytime soon, it could ramp up pressure on cryptocurrency exchanges.

In the eastern Europe, war continued to rage after Ukraine didn’t accept the Russian proposal of surrendering the city of Mariupol on Sunday.

(Edited by : Bivekananda Biswas)

First Published: Mar 21, 2022, 10:15 AM IST