Bitcoin is currently trading around $20.2k at press time. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was under pressure from the bears throughout the weekend. However, they couldn’t force a move further below and now with some positive news, the crypto has uneasily recovered slightly above $20k today. Altcoins on the other hand were largely steady at the end of the weekend and into the new week. More on that later on.
In other news, Mt.Gox trustee managers have denied rumours regarding a massive crypto dump. The fears have been dogging the crypto’s near future for quite a while now as hundreds of thousands of Bitcoin are expected to be credited back to users. The managers stated that the compensation will be paid in multiple instalments. More on that later on.
OpenSea’s NFT trading has taken a big hit in the last three months. Daily volume has plunged almost 99% during this time, virtually bringing it down to almost nothing. The market, which was used to processing hundreds of thousands of dollars per day in NFT trades only witnessed a meagre $5 million overall. While this shows the market has slowed down a lot, data suggests that in the long-term NFTs are here to stay.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse took to Twitter to defend the recent explosive claims made by Crypto Leaks that alleges that the company funded a law firm to target competitor lawsuits. The law firm was reportedly contacted by Ripple to start lawsuits against rival crypto companies, similar to the one currently being faced by it. Garlinghouse claims that he has never met Kyle Roche, the focal person of the law firm. This is uncompetitive behaviour from the company that has been embroiled in a massive lawsuit of its own for almost 2 years.
Bitcoin Slowly Recovers Back Above $20k
Bitcoin is currently valued at around $20.2k near press time. The cryptocurrency has undergone a meek recovery as bears couldn’t press on for more losses.
The last 24 hours started with BTC at around $19.9k. It traded sideways for a while before starting to drop at 1:20 AM in the night. It flash dropped to around $19.6k but that proved to be the extent of this bear move. The index immediately recovered back to around $19.8k and stayed there for much of the rest of the day. Just before press time, the cryptocurrency started to recover and it is now back above $20k.
Going forward, Bitcoin is now facing a slowdown in bearish activity, firstly probably because of reassurances from Mt. Gox regarding a possible incoming Bitcoin dump in the market. The cryptocurrency has since recovered back to above $20k and is now looking to consolidate around the $20k level. It is expected to spend some time here before making the next move. However, the overwhelming long term trend is still very much in the favour of the bears.
The total market capitalization of Bitcoin was around $386 billion and its share of the proceedings was 40.3%.
Altcoins Remain Steady
Other cryptocurrencies aka altcoins remained largely steady at the end of the last 24 hours. Major movers included Ethereum (ETH, 3%), Ripple (XRP, -2.5%), Uniswap (UNI, 3.3%), and Avalanche (AVAX, -4.3%).
In Other News…..
Mt. Gox Denies Massive Bitcoin Dump Rumours
The hacked exchange had more than 700,000 BTC stolen from its wallets in 2014. They only have 137,000 BTC to give back to users, but since the price has risen around 100 times since then, users might just accept this settlement offer. However, some longstanding legal tussles with some sections of the users remain. They are delaying the much-awaited payouts.
However, once the 137,000 BTC are credited to the users, one can indeed predict some downwards selling pressure on the crypto. While not all users may choose to liquidate considering the future potential of the crypto, some are likely to do it following 8 years of legal proceedings and investigations.