Cryptocurrency Update: Bitcoin fell slightly amid volatile markets on Friday, March 18, as tensions in Russia, Ukraine persisted for more than a month. According to global crypto tracking website CoinMarketCap, the world’s largest cryptocurrency has fallen 0.02 percent in market value in the past 24 hours to $40,755.47 at the time of writing this article. It should be noted that Bitcoin is up almost 5 percent in the past seven days.
Ether, the second most popular cryptocurrency, rose 1.64 percent in a day, according to CoinMarketCap, reaching $2,798.10. On a weekly basis, Ether gained more than 8 percent.
Bitcoin slipped below the $40,000 level in the past month as the conflict between Ukraine and Russia intensified. On the other hand, the gold price jumped to its highest level since June last year. Analysts had previously mentioned that Bitcoin could fall further below $30,000 as traders are now expected to prefer gold.
The US Federal Reserve raised interest rates from 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent for the first time since 2018 to curb rising inflation. In most cases, the rise in interest rates indicates uncertainty for the crypto market as investors have greater access to low-risk returns,” CoinDCX Research Team said on the crypto market’s movement a day ago.
“However, in the past 24 hours we have seen the crypto market react atypically and move further upwards to continue the bullish trend in the greens,” it said.
This could be a case of a slowdown in the market’s response and investors may not witness the real impact on crypto until later, it added.
The global cryptocurrency market has also bounced back slightly despite the crisis in Russia, Ukraine, as most of the major cryptocurrencies have gained in value. The cryptocurrency market cap was $1.83 trillion, according to data from CoinMarketCap. This was up 0.26% in the past 24 hours. However, global crypto volume has fallen in the past day. The total volume of coins traded in the past day was $78.85 billion. This is down 16.77 percent in the past 24 hours, according to data on the website.
Here are the top 10 cryptocurrencies and their prices as of March 18, 2022 (data from coinmarketcap.com at the time of publishing this article)
Bitcoin $40,755.47 or 0.02 percent loss in the last 24 hours
Ethereum $2,798.10 or 1.64 percent gain in the last 24 hours
Tether $1.00 or 0.01 percent gain in the last 24 hours
BNB $387.79 or 0.67 percent gain in the last 24 hours
USD coin $0.9997 or 0.02 percent loss in the last 24 hours
XRP $85.62 or 2.14 percent loss in the last 24 hours
Terra $90.16 or 3.20 percent gain in the last 24 hours
Cardano $0.8317 or 1.59 percent loss in the last 24 hours
Solana $86.56 or 0.99 percent loss in the last 24 hours
Avalanche $79.84 or 5.05 percent gain in the last 24 hours
Read all the latest news, breaking news and the war between Ukraine and Russia here.