Cryptocurrency prices today: Bitcoin rises above $25,200, highest since mid-June

On the other hand, Ether, the coin linked to the ethereum blockchain and the second largest cryptocurrency, rose nearly a per cent to $2,004. Ether surpassed $2,000 on Saturday for the first time since May 31 amid optimism about completion of its blockchain’s much-anticipated software upgrade known as the Merge, which is now likely to happen around Sept. 15, according to network co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

The Merge represents a transition in how Ether tokens are minted and transactions are validated, away from mining blocks using complex computational puzzles under the proof-of-work method and toward proof-of-stake. Under the POS method, Ether holders can sign up to validate transactions on Ethereum based on stashes of locked up tokens.

Meanwhile, dogecoin price today was trading more than 10% higher at $0.08 whereas Shiba Inu also surged over 34% to $0.000017. Other crypto prices’ today performance were mixed as XRP, BNB, Litecoin, Tether, Tron, Avalanche, Stellar, Polygon prices were trading with gains over the last 24 hours, Uniswap, Apecoin, Polkadot, Chainlink slipped.

Crypto struggled through the first half of the year as the Federal Reserve hiked rates to combat stubbornly high inflation, with the prices of Bitcoin, Ether and other tokens falling by more than 50%. Following the collapse of a major pair of tokens, some cryptocurrency lenders froze customer withdrawals, and several crypto firms have cut jobs. Prices have partly recovered, with bitcoin gaining 17% in July.

With US inflation data coming in below expectations in the past week, risk assets like the Nasdaq 100 Index have advanced, helping foster gains in crypto, which has been strongly correlated with that stocks gauge for months.

(With inputs from agencies)

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