As the market shed earlier this week’s lingering concerns about more contagion from the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Bitcoin soared past US$16,000 in early Wednesday trade, rising alongside Ether and the rest of the top 10 cryptos by market capitalization, excluding stablecoins.
According to CoinMarketCap, in the 24 hours, Bitcoin increased 2.6% to US$16,198 while Ether increased 2.5% to trade at US$1,135. Dogecoin, the most popular memecoin, increased 5.1% to US$0.07, and Polygon increased 6.8% to US$0.85.
In that ranking, Litecoin experienced the most gains, jumping 13.7% to US$70.09, or 20.76% over the previous seven days, as it moved up the CoinMarketCap list. The blockchain recently hit an all-time high in mining difficulty on November 18, despite the general market decline, and CryptoSlate recently stated that “[Litecoin’s] resurgence is likely a symptom of crypto users looking for stability in a chaotic market.”
Even though it had increased by 5% to US$12.44 on Wednesday morning, Solana kept falling in CoinMarketCap’s rankings. This decline started when Alameda Research started selling a sizable portion of its holdings in the token amid the demise of sister company FTX.
Tuesday’s market volatility came as a result of brokerage Genesis Global Capital pausing withdrawals during a spike in trading activity. This move alarmed Genesis’ parent venture capital firm Digital Currency Group (DCG), which later disclosed that Genesis owed it US$575 million. Despite this, DCG stated in a letter to shareholders that the loans are not due until May 2023, and the company hopes to come out of the Crypto Winter “stronger” as a result, according to Wall Street Journal.
