Crypto Price Today: Bitcoin holds $19K; XRP, Solana, Polygon gain up to 9%

New Delhi: Amid the risk-off sentiments, the crypto market was trading mixed during the early hours on Friday. Bitcoin and Ethereum cooled down over inflationary concerns.

US Commerce Department report confirming that the world’s largest economy was in recession by the traditional definition of two consecutive quarters of negative gross domestic product, hit the sentiments on Wall Street.

Top crypto tokens were trading mixed on Friday. Ethereum and Bitcoin dropped marginally, whereas XRP soared 9 per cent. Polkadot gained over 4 per cent, followed by a 2 per cent rise in Polygon and Solana.

The global cryptocurrency market cap was trading marginally higher at $942.84 billion, rising less than a per cent in the last 24 hours. However, the total trading volume tumbled as much as 16 per cent, close to $69.93 billion.

What’s cooking in India
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has frozen Rs 21.14 crore of online forex trading app OctaFX and related entities in various bank accounts after carrying out searches at their premises over allegations that the private firm’s activity was in contravention of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

A major portion of the defrauded amount was used to purchase crypto currencies and assets through M/s Zanmai Labs, the parent company of the crypto exchange WazirX, the agency stated.

Expert take
Bitcoin showed signs of recovery on Thursday by trading higher after a broad sell-off, said Edul Patel, CEO and co-founder, Mudrex. However, it has failed to hold above the $20,000 level in its past two attempts.

The volatility has increased in recent weeks, and market participants reacted to the rising inflation and fluctuations in the US dollar, he added.

Tarusha Mittal, COO, and Cofounder, UniFarm said the overall crypto market cap remained below the $1 trillion mark as most of the crypto assets, including Bitcoin and Ether remained flat during the day trade.

Global Updates
Small retail payments in Sub-Saharan Africa are powering exceptional crypto adoption and usage, with the region conducting the world’s highest proportion of crypto retail payments of less than $1,000, according to Chainalysis.

Crypto exchange Bittrex, custodian BitGo and six other firms have joined the Crypto Market Integrity Coalition, a self-regulatory organization aiming to combat crypto market manipulation.

WonderFi Technologies plans to offer stock trading for customers through one of its crypto trading platforms, Bitbuy. It will offer fractional trading and investments in thousands of US stocks, exchange-listed securities and ETFs.

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance said customers can now join a mining pool for ETHW, the forked version of Ethereum that retains the blockchain’s original proof-of-work underpinnings.

Tech view by BuyUcoin cryptocurrency exchange
MATIC, the native token of polygon network, has witnessed a jump of over 4% in the past 24 hours. Polygon is built over the Ethereum network and the success of the merge has raised hopes for networks similar to Polygon.

ET CONTRIBUTORS

The investors are looking at Polygon with a lot of positivity and MATIC is one of the very few coins which are going against the bear tide in the current crypto market.

The fundamentals of MATIC are looking really strong and the price momentum may continue if macroeconomic factors surrounding the financial markets show signs of improvement.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)