Crypto Market Wrap: BTC, ETH Pull Back as LUNA Hits ATH
Bitcoin and Ethereum pulled back followed by many other currencies with a few exceptions including SOL, LUNA, and DOGE which grew by 5-8% in the last 7 days.
Apart from the ongoing war in Ukraine, there are many other factors that may be causing the volatility of the market. The US Federal Reserve’s plan to increase interest rates is expected to have a negative impact on traditional stocks as well as the digital currencies. Besides, on March 31 the European Union voted to ban anonymous crypto transactions while on the same day the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rejected the application for the Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF. Both pieces of news may have led to the plunge of many coins and tokens on the next day.
Bearish Trend for Bitcoin and Ethereum
Even though it has shown a steady growth for the past month, Bitcoin has been really volatile lately and altogether lost 6.09% in value in the last 7 days and 3.42% in 24 hours. At this point, BTC is trading at $44,207.82.
Ethereum surged on the first day of the month but later fell back down. The coin dropped by 2.71% in a week and by 4.59% in the last 24 hours. At the moment of writing, the price of ETH is $3,317.60.
5 Leading DeFi Currencies
Following BTC and ETH, most popular DeFi coins (with the exception of Terra) have dipped in the last week. Let’s briefly review the top 5 DeFi cryptos and how they have behaved recently.
#1 Terra (LUNA)
LUNA is now the leading DeFi coin by market capitalization. Its blockchain protocol is aimed at powering price-stable global payments systems. The platform’s native token LUNA is set to stabilize the price of its stablecoins.
Terra is just one of the few cryptos that have grown in the past week. After acquiring $135 million worth of Bitcoin, the currency jumped in value and reached the new ATH of $117.91 on April 5. However, later it pulled back. All in all, LUNA grew by 4.71% in a week but lost 6.81% in value in the last 24 hours. Right now it’s trading at $109.97.
#2 Avalanche (AVAX)
Avalanche is considered to be the fastest smart contracts platform in the whole blockchain industry. It also claims to be relatively cheap and eco-friendly. Since its launch in 2020, the popularity of the platform and its native currency have grown tremendously.
After rising significantly in the last month, the coin has slightly dropped in the last seven days losing 7.96% in its value. In the last 24 hours AVAX fell by 9.33% and now costs $84.79.
#3 Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC)
WBTC is basically a tokenized version of Bitcoin on the Ethereum blockchain. The currency has all the advantages of ERC-20 tokens and is backed by Bitcoin at a 1:1 ratio which means that its price is pegged to BTC at all times.
Predictably, just like Bitcoin, WBTC fell in the last 7 days. The currency lost 6.15% in its value for the past week and 3.43% in the last 24 hours. At this point, Wrapped Bitcoin is trading at $44,187.68.
#4 Dai (DAI)
Launched in 2019, Dai is a stablecoin run by the Ethereum blockchain. The price of DAI is soft-pegged to the US dollar and is collateralized by numerous other cryptocurrencies.
DAI has dipped by 0.3% in 7 days and 0.5 and gained 0.5% in the last 24 hours. At the moment of writing, it is equivalent to 1 US dollar.
#5 Chainlink (LINK)
Launched in 2017, the Chainlink project is meant to enable universally connected smart contracts. It uses a decentralized oracle network and is powered by a large open-source community.
Despite growing steadily the whole March, just like many other coins, LINK has dropped in the last week. It has fallen by 7.46% in the past 7 days and by 7.63% in the last 24 hours. It is now trading at $15.79.
It seems that the month is starting with the bearish trend for most cryptocurrencies. However, since April is historically known to be successful for the market, coins might be on the rise soon again.
