By Apoorva Bellapu
Over a period of time, the cryptocurrency market has seen a huge demand. All the major currencies under this market succeeded in grabbing eyeballs from across the globe because of the spike in the prices. It was just a couple of days back when Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency and the one with the highest market capitalization, stood at $42,107.19. It was during this time that its market value reached $787.99 billion.
Today, Bitcoin priced at $36,520 has a market value of $686 billion. These numbers are quite convincing because it was just a couple of days back before the surge that Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies tanked beyond anticipation. On May 19, Bitcoin drowned to $30000 and the market value reduced drastically.
Talking about the second most popular cryptocurrency – Ethereum, it currently stands at $2222. The market value of Ethereum is $256.5. Days back when Bitcoin surged in value, Ethereum also saw a significant increase. The price reached $2886.63 and the market value was at $2886.63 during that point in time. On May 19, following the line of Bitcoin, Ethereum also tanked – as much as over 40 percent.
The decline in the prices of these two highly traded cryptocurrencies was followed by Elon Musk’s reversal on Tesla taking Bitcoin as payment. Well, it didn’t just end there. Following the reversal, there were a series of tweets that paved the way for confusion over whether Elon had shed the holdings of the currency.
Investing in cryptocurrencies being legal in some countries and illegal in others has always raised a question as to how reliable the cryptocurrency market is. Different market leaders, players, and organizations, therefore, have a different perception of the same. When the world saw one of the most prominent crypto crashes on 19 May, American economist Nouriel Roubini grabbed attention for the statement he had put forth. He criticized all the institutional investors who invested in volatile pseudo-asset ‘Bitcoin’. He went on to add that Bitcoin has no intrinsic value.
Though India has not made cryptocurrencies legal, the rising popularity of the same in the country is totally worth a mention. People here are always curious to know more about this digital market in depth. While many show an inclination towards investing in cryptocurrencies here, there is still a good chunk of people who choose to stay away from this unregulated market. One among them has to be Zerodha founder Nithin Kamath. He said that he doesn’t understand Bitcoin as an asset class and that is the reason why he doesn’t invest in it. He believes that the only reason to buy Bitcoin today is the hope that someone will buy it from you at a higher cost.
Other cryptocurrencies – Tether, Cardano, Binance Coin and Dogecoin have also made it into the list of highly traded cryptocurrencies. Tether, which is considered to be one of the most economic cryptocurrencies, stands constant at $1, Cardano at $1.4, Binance coin at $290, and Dogecoin at $0.34. All these do play a pivotal role in the cryptocurrency market and thus hold a lot of importance.
Apoorva Bellapu is a content writer by passion.