This week in coins. Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt.
While Bitcoin and Ethereum’s price rallies over the past seven days aren’t particularly notable numerically given their long histories of sometimes explosive price movements, there was a clear sense that it was still a significant week for both.
Bitcoin (BTC) is up 7.6% to its current price of $30,146, meaning it is finally breached the $30,000 support barrier again for the first time in nine months and managed to hold onto its gains through the weekend.
A key driver of Bitcoin’s rise in value was the release of the latest U.S. inflation figures by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The consumer price index for the month of March showed that inflation was lower than forecast.
This latest read is a strong indicator that the Fed could back away from the policy of raising interest rates it has pursued throughout 2022, making it more expensive to borrow money and ultimately turning investors away from risky assets like crypto and stocks.
It was also a big week for Bitcoin’s closest rival, Ethereum (ETC), which exploded 10.1% to $2,061. On Friday, the coin briefly broke through $2,100 for the first time eleven months.
Much of the Ethereum hype has focused on the launch of the long-awaited “Shapella” upgrade, the went live On Wednesday. “Shapella” collectively refers to two upgrades, Shanghai and Capella, which have now unlocked withdrawals from ETH staked on the network at execution level and consensus level respectively, unlocking $34 billion in ETH staked.
The execution layer executes and records Ethereum’s transactions in real-time, while the consensus layer validates those transactions. Each validator has wagered 32 ETH to activate their software and is rewarded with ETH for confirming transactions.
Solana (SOL) holders witnessed the biggest rally among the top 30 cryptocurrencies. SOL is up 16% and is currently trading at $23.91.
Much of SOL’s performance this week was down to credit the release of Sagaan Android phone powered by the Solana blockchain on April 13. The device gives users seamless access to Solana’s vast ecosystem of apps and projects.
Other notable rallies this week include Cardano (ADA) up 11.9% to $0.43, OKB up 10% to trade at $45.33, Aptos (APT) up 8.4% to $12.41 and NEAR Protocol (NEAR) was up 9% to $2.17.
There were no losses among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap this week.
Learn Crypto Trading, Yield Farms, Income strategies and more at CrytoAnswers
https://nov.link/cryptoanswers
Comments are closed.