The crypto market is back to its trillion-dollar status after losing it weeks ago due to a fall in the prices of cryptocurrencies and other challenges. Irrespective of various challenges including an increase in the US inflation rate to 9.10 percent, macroeconomic uncertainties, investors pulling out their crypto assets, unfavorable government policies, etc., the crypto market is back to its trillion-dollar status for the first time in weeks.
The latest development is being spurred by altcoins especially Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency just after Bitcoin. The rise in investors’ expectations for Ethereum’s long-awaited merge, has helped build a rally in the altcoin market. Ethereum’s “The Merge” mainnet upgrade has been scheduled to launch on the 19th of September, 2022.
This upgrade will see the Ethereum blockchain transcend from a Proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mechanism. Expectations for this upgrade have caused a rally in the altcoin market.
Irrespective of analysts’ forecast that the Federal Reserve intends to raise interest rates by at least 75 basis points at the Federal Open Market Committee meeting on July 27, it has been a bullish week in the crypto market which also means that there’s been a positive rally in the traditional markets which are slightly up.
Major U.S. indexes like the tech-dominated NASDAQ, the DOW, and the S&P 500, are up over 2% for the week.
As of the time of writing this article, Bitcoin was trading at $24,000.30. This means that the world’s largest cryptocurrency has made a slight recovery. Prior to now, the cryptocurrency which fell below the $20,000 mark in recent weeks was trading just around that mark. Ether was trading at $1,606.30 as of the time of this draft.
The recent downturn in the crypto market, as well as other macroeconomic challenges, has caused some challenges for crypto companies. While some of these firms had to pause transactions such as withdrawals, deposits, and swaps, others like Celsius have filed for bankruptcy.