Bitcoin has gained 3.8% in the last 24 hours to $19.4K. Quotes have stabilised near the lower bound of the three-month range. Ethereum gained temporary support after falling below $1300 and is up 6.7% in 24 hours. XRP jumped 28% overnight and 66% over the week to $0.54, posting the highest gain among top-100 cryptocurrencies. There are rumours that crypto whales have switched from ETH to XRP after the SEC and Ripple Labs asked the court to speed up hearings for their case.
Other top altcoins are rising between 4.5% (BNB) and 7.1% (DogeCoin). Despite this upward move, the technical picture does not yet point to a break in the downtrend, and widespread monetary policy tightening leads us to expect further pressure on markets.
On the other hand, we see precious metal prices rising with a 5% increase in crypto market capitalisation over the past 24 hours. This could be the start of a new trend, where investors are looking at alternatives as a safe haven for capital due to concerns over the solvency of countries.
News background
Changpeng Zhao, CEO of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance, said bearish trends are common and healthy for the crypto market. He said the crypto industry still has room to grow, while inflation and rising energy prices have drawn attention to cryptocurrencies.
According to Oklink, the recent drop in Ethereum resulted from miners' activation. Mining pools have dropped almost 17,000 ETH in the last seven days alone. The final version of the European Draft Crypto Asset Markets Act (MiCA) equates NFTs with securities. Technically, the MiCA is still open for amendments, but other reports suggest that the European Union has finalised the bill's full text.
