Cryptocurrency prices today declined with Bitcoin trading below $21,000 level. The world’s largest and most popular cryptocurrency was trading more than 6% lower at $20,298. The global crypto market cap today was above the $1 trillion mark, even as it was down over 6% in the last 24 hours at $1.02 trillion, as per CoinGecko.
On the other hand, Ether, the coin linked to the ethereum blockchain and the second largest cryptocurrency, plunged more than 10% to $1,509. Ether had been outperforming the broader crypto market in recent weeks amid optimism over a pending network software upgraded called the Merge.
Earlier this week, the Ethereum Foundation had released the new information about the upcoming upgrade, indicating that all the preparations are going smoothly. The announcement confirmed that the upgrade will be fully completed between September 10th to 20th.
Meanwhile, dogecoin price today was trading over 7% lower at $0.06 whereas Shiba Inu was down nearly 10% at $0.000013. Other crypto prices’ today performance also declined as BNB, Chainlink, Apecoin, XRP, Uniswap, Tron, Litecoin, Stellar, Binance USD, Polygon, Solana, Polkadot, Avalanche, Tether prices were trading with cuts over the last 24 hours.
Cryptocurrencies mirrored global markets and declined after Jerome Powell warned against prematurely loosening policy, with Bitcoin settling into the lower end of the narrow range that it has traded in the past two weeks. It has traded in a range of around $22,000 to $20,000 since last Friday.
Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman, signaled the US central bank is likely to keep raising interest rates and leave them elevated for a while to stamp out inflation, and he pushed back against any idea that the Fed would soon reverse course.
Cryptos have struggled through the first half of the year as the Federal Reserve hiked rates to combat stubbornly high inflation. Following the collapse of a major pair of tokens, some cryptocurrency lenders froze customer withdrawals, and several crypto firms have cut jobs. Bitcoin has recovered from its mid-June lows, but number-two crypto Ether has done even better amid enthusiasm about its coming Merge upgrade.
(With inputs from agencies)
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