Cryptos Rebound But Anxiety Lingers

Cryptocurrencies rallied early on Tuesday amidst cautious relief ahead of the Fed’s two-day meeting. The Fed’s interest rate decision, the economic projections and the much-awaited press conference are scheduled for Wednesday. The Bank of England’s interest rate decision would be known on Thursday.

The Asian stock markets closed mostly in the green. However, the European markets and Wall Street futures are trading in negative territory. The Dollar Index meanwhile strengthened, while Gold dropped amidst anxiety over the Fed’s decision.

Adding to the anxiety was the debate on the reported comments of Gary Gensler, the SEC Chief. Wall Street Journal had recently quoted the SEC Chief as saying that cryptocurrencies and intermediaries that allow holders to “stake” their coins might pass a key test used by courts to determine whether an asset is a security. The Wall Street journal had also raised apprehensions on whether The Merge had turned the second-largest cryptocurrency into a security in the eyes of the top U.S. regulator. However, several experts are questioning SEC’s claim of jurisdiction over Ethereum.

The SEC filing charges against the cryptocurrency promoter Ian Balina for violating federal securities law way back in 2018 also made headlines in crypto sphere. The SEC observation that validation of transactions in the ICO by a network of nodes on the Ethereum blockchain, clustered more densely in the United States, than in any other country, means that those transactions took place in the United States, has also met with resistance from the crypto industry.

Overall crypto market capitalization is at $930 billion, versus $910 billion a day earlier, implying an overnight gain of 2 percent.

Bitcoin is trading in the green zone, up 1.6 percent overnight, but is trending lower 10.9 percent on a weekly basis and 60 percent in the year 2022. BTC ranged between $19,639.48 and $18,762.22 in the past 24 hours and is currently trading at $19,127.67. Bitcoin’s dominance currently stands at 39.4 percent.

Ether outperformed Bitcoin with a 2.3 percent overnight rally but underperformed with a 17.3 percent weekly loss. It is still continuing with more than 64 percent losses on a year-to-date basis. ETH ranged between $1,388.27 and $1,314.05 in the past 24 hours and is currently trading at $1,350.48.

A scrutiny of the top 100 cryptocurrencies shows that 100th ranked BinaryX (BNX) is the best performer on a year-to-date basis, having gained 153 percent in 2022. 32nd ranked Terra Classic (LUNC) leads the price charts over the 30-day horizon with a 222 percent uptick. 37th ranked Chiliz (CHZ) tops the gainers list with a 24 percent weekly surge. 31st ranked ApeCoin (APE) which gained 12 percent overnight is the best performer in the past 24 hours.

In the same category, 32nd ranked Terra Classic (LUNC) is the greatest laggard on a year-to-date basis, having plunged close to 100 percent in 2022. 95th ranked Celsius (CEL) has lost the most over the 30-day horizon with a 42 percent slide. 93rd ranked Terra (LUNA) tops the laggards list with a 38 percent weekly drop. 32nd ranked Terra Classic (LUNC) which dropped 5.6 percent overnight is the greatest laggard in the past 24 hours.

ETHPoW (ETHW), a hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain that would remain on Proof-of-Work, ranked 2656 overall which had dropped 29 percent on Monday rebounded 20 percent overnight to trade at $6.63. The rebound follows the announcement of the launch of the cross-chain ETHW Bridge, backed by BridgeTech.

DeFi Market Maker Wintermute on Tuesday clarified that it has suffered a $160 million hack on its DeFi operations. It had suffered a $20 million exploit in June when a hacker stole $20 million worth of Optimism (OP) tokens. The services on the platform are likely to be disrupted till the issue is resolved. Blockchain security company BlockSec has said that the root cause of the attack is a leaked private key.

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