Cryptocurrency prices today: Bitcoin, ether, shiba inu drop. Check latest rates here

livemint.com:

The cryptocurrency market today is trending lower with Bitcoin price today plunged below $30,000 level following a brief uptick just earlier this week. The world's largest and most popular cryptocurrency dropped to a whopping 2.9% and was trading at $29,276.07. Notably, the digital token is down more than 35% so far this year (YTD), and is trading far below its record high of $69,000 it had hit in November last year. The total cryptocurrency trading volume in the last 24 hours is at $68.2 billion with bitcoin dominance at 44.7% and ethereum dominance is at 16.2%.

Additionally, ether, the coin linked to the ethereum blockchain and the second largest cryptocurrency, dropped even further to 6.9% trading at $1,673.61. Dogecoin is trending below 4.1% today trading at $0.076157 and Shiba Inu also dropped to 3.4% to $0.00001024. 

Other digital tokens witnessed mixed performance with Cardano and Polkadot seeing a steep dip. Stellar, Uniswap, XRP, Tron, Tether, Solana, Avalanche, Polygon, Chainlink, Terra Luna Classic also witnessed a mixed performance in the last 24 hours.

Meanwhile, the chief Economic Adviser V Anantha Nageswaran on Thursday said cryptocurrencies are akin to 'a world of Carribean pirates' in the absence of a centralised regulatory authority and is yet to pass the test of a fiat currency.

He said that the government is pursuing a 'high-wire balancing act' to ensure that the gains in growth, inflation, rupee stability of the last four years are not frittered away.

He said the recent development in Terra-Luna cryptocurrency, which witnessed a massive meltdown last month, is a 'very important cautionary tale'.

"I wouldn't be very excited by them (cryptocurrency) because sometimes we may not be fully aware or