The cryptocurrency market plunged on Thursday, with the market capitalisation shedding 7.7 percent to reach $2.55 trillion as of 1210 hours GMT. The largest cryptocurrency Bitcoin tanked by 7.59 percent to reach $53,721. With this decrease in price, the market capitalisation of the biggest cryptocurrency has reached 1.01 trillion.
Ether, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, plunged by 9.7 percent to reach $3,968. With this decrease in price, the market capitalisation of ETH has reached $466.2 billion. Similarly, XRP price decreased by 10.23 percent to reach $0.934. The market capitalisation of XRP stands at $93.3 billion after this decrease. Likewise, Cardano (ADA) price went down by 1.51 percent to reach $1.51. Its market capitalisation has reached $49.5 billion with this decrease.
Following suit, Dogecoin (DOGE) price dipped by 10.18 percent to reach $0.198. With this decrease in price, the market capitalisation of Doge has reached $26.2 billion.The crypto market followed the plunge of the global equity markets in the wake of reports of the new and possibly vaccine-resistant coronavirus variant first detected in Botswana, then South Africa, Israel and Hong Kong. Amid growing fears that the world may have to reintroduce economically-painful lockdown restrictions, investors are scrambling to find low-risk assets.
On the other hand, crypto prices have been plummeting in India since a government proposed bill seeking to ban private virtual currencies sent holders into a panic-selling mode. According to reports, there has been a massive crash in prices after the investors engaged in panic selling. A similar knee-jerk reaction was seen in January when the contents of the bill were disclosed.
China’s state planner, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said during a press conference on Tuesday last that it will continue to clean up virtual currency mining in the country. Earlier this year, China cracked down on bitcoin mining leading to an exodus of miners. Mining is the energy-intensive process which both creates new coins and maintains a log of all transactions of existing digital tokens. Beijing is concerned about the amount of energy being used by mining.
