By James Davis
The largest coin by market cap, Bitcoin, has not seen wild volatility this week. On Friday, it crossed above $31,000 and later dropped to $29,910, then rose to $30,550 as of Sunday afternoon. Last week, Bitcoin’s market share reached 50%, but it’s now at 47.7%.
Despite this week’s relatively flat performance, BTC is up 14.6% in the last 14 days and 12.8% over the previous month. Data from CoinGecko shows that investors who bought the coin a year ago have now recorded a 50% return on investment.
Meanwhile, Ethereum has grown by 1.12% over the last seven days to change hands for $1,918 as of this writing. The token’s 14-day gains stand at 10.8%. Additionally, it’s up 1.9% over the past thirty days.
Price Analysis of Other Cryptocurrencies
In the midweek, most of the crypto assets that had been deemed securities by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission when it brought charges against crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase showed signs of recovery. Solana, in particular, added about 11% to trade at $19.04. But Cardano and Polygon are still struggling. They are both down by over 2% and now trade at $0.29 and $0.67, respectively.
It is worth mentioning that the top 50 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization have not posted any massive losses. Some have recorded rallies of over 10% in the last seven days. For example, VeChain has increased by 10.3% to $0.0202; Stellar has risen 17.2% to $0.107; and Ethereum Classic has gained 10.4% to trade at $20.30.
But the two coins that have witnessed significant rallies this week are Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin. The proof-of-work (PoW) coins started rallying when EDX Markets, a crypto exchange launched a few days ago, announced that it had listed the two crypto assets along with Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin Cash is up 51% for the week to trade at $300.76, while Litecoin has grown by 27% to change hands for $10.89 as of this writing.
The EDX Markets listing was huge for the two cryptocurrencies since the exchange is supported by several market leaders in the traditional finance sector, including Fidelity and Citadel Securities. The CEO of the trading platform Jamil Nazarali says he chose to list the four crypto assets because he’s convinced that none of them is a security.
Meanwhile, experts say that another driver behind Litecoin’s rally is the halving event happening this month, in which the mining rewards are cut by 50%. LTC has surged massively ahead of the event in the past, so it’s possible a rally may be happening again this year.
Other Crypto News
Switzerland to Test Its CBDC
At the start of the week, the Chairman of the Swiss National Bank, Thomas Jordan, announced that Switzerland will soon test its central bank digital currency (CBDC) on SIX Digital Exchange (SDX), the nation’s first regulated crypto trading platform.
While delivering his speech at the Point Zero Forum held in Zurich, Jordan said the central bank was aiming to find out how the CBDC would perform in real transactions.
That day, the Hong Kong subsidiary of British bank HSBC announced that it would let its customers trade Ethereum and Bitcoin futures ETFs (Exchange-Traded Funds) on the company’s mobile app known as Easy Invest.
The following day, the European Parliament took to Twitter to announce that the house’s Economic and Money Affairs (AMA) committee had agreed to approve proposed amendments to the Capital Requirements Regulations and Directive (CRRD). The changes were introduced to shield the traditional financial system from being disrupted by unbacked cryptocurrencies.
On Thursday, King Charles signed the Financial Service and Markets Act into law, officially recognizing crypto trading as regulated financial activity.
More Companies Apply for Bitcoin ETFs
Finally, Ark Invest and Fidelity became the latest firms to file for a Bitcoin ETF, joining the likes of BlackRock, Wisdom Tree, and Invesco. However, recent rumors suggest that the US Securities and Exchange Commission has deemed “inadequate” all the ETF applications filed this month.