Cryptocurrency Market

The cryptocurrency market has been strengthening this week, and most digital assets have partially regained their lost positions. BTC is currently trading around 57000.00 (+14.0%), while ETH is at 1790.00 (+7.2%). The third place in terms of capitalization was taken by the BNB token, now it is moving around 285.00 (+19.0%). USDT is in the area of ​​1.0005 (–0.01%). The ADA token fell to the fifth place to the level of 1.0825 (–2.6%). The total market capitalization rose to $1.725 trillion during the week. The share of Bitcoin in the market exceeded 61.25%.

Experts associate the growth of the digital currency market with the approval of the package of financial assistance to the US economy of $1.9T. The bill received Congressional approval and was signed by US President Joe Biden. Soon, funds will begin to flow into the economy, which could cause a serious rise in inflation and spur demand for alternative assets. Also, the market reacted positively to the fact that the US Senate Banking Committee approved the candidacy of Gary Gensler for the post of head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Observers believe he will help create a clearer legal framework for cryptocurrency regulation. Now, its absence prevents investments in cryptocurrencies of large public companies, as their management does not understand the final status of such assets and the principles of their taxation. Currently, large public investors own about $9B of BTC but more than $7B of that belongs to MicroStrategy Inc. and Tesla Inc.

From the news, it is worth noting the conflict between Ethereum developers and miners. This week, developers decided to include the EIP-1559 update into the London hard fork scheduled for July. It will allow optimizing commissions and making them less for users, which has been sharply criticized by the largest mining pools, whose income may significantly decrease. On April 1, disgruntled miners intend to conduct a show of force by combining the hashrate available to them. If they manage to collect 51% of the hashrate, then it should be enough for one-way acceptance or cancellation of changes in the network protocol. However, miners do not plan to attack the Ethereum net yet. Meanwhile, Etherium co-founder Vitalik Buterin said that soon, it would be able to increase productivity by 100 times thanks to the launch of the Rollup modernization program. Ripple continues to be under pressure from the SEC, which with its lawsuit threatened XRP trading in the United States. The uncertain future of the asset is forcing many cryptocurrency platforms and companies to abandon its support, including such large ones as Coinbase, Bitstamp, OKCoin, Galaxy Digital, and Grayscale Investments. This week, the head of Ripple Brad Garlinghouse confirmed the termination of the company's cooperation with the money transfer service MoneyGram but there is still hope for the resumption of cooperation in the future when disputes with the US authorities are resolved. Nevertheless, Ripple's management is trying to remain optimistic, counting on the company's continued development in other markets. Garlinghouse previously said the SEC's suit did not negatively impact the company's business in Asia. XRP liquidity in Asian countries and above all in Japan, where the token is not recognized as a security, continues to grow.