Cryptocurrency prices continued to gain today with Bitcoin trading above the $40,000 level. The digital token was trading over 2% higher at $40,003. The world's most popular and largest cryptocurrency is down about 12% in 2022 (year-to-date or YTD) so far. It is about 30% far away from its record high of near $69,000 it had hit in November last year.
On the other hand, Ether, the coin linked to the ethereum blockchain and the second-largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization, also gained over 3% to $2,644. Dogecoin price gained marginally to $0.11 whereas Shiba Inu was trading almost flat at $0.000022.
The performance of other digital tokens were mixed as Polygon, Litecoin, Stellar, Uniswap, Solana, Polygon, Polkadot, Cardano surged over the last 24 hours while Terra slipped 6%, and XRP also plunged. Meanwhile, the global cryptocurrency market capitalisation rose even as it remained below the $2 trillion mark at $1.9 trillion, more than 5% change in the last 24 hours, as per CoinGecko.
Cryptocurrencies have been beset by the same forces that have dented other risk assets this year, including US stocks. Investors are worried about an economic slowdown amid rising commodities prices due to the war in Ukraine.
In another news, the Indian government said it has no plans to introduce cryptocurrency and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is working towards a phased implementation strategy for introduction of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
In a written reply, Minister of State (MoS) for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said, "RBI does not issue cryptocurrency. Traditional paper currency is a legal tender and is issued by RBI in terms of provisions of RBI Act, 1994. A digital version of traditional paper currency is
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