Cryptos Cautious

Posted by Jeffrey Sloe on November 13, 2021 - 12:42am

Cryptos Cautious As Dollar Surges

By RTTNews Staff Writer | Published: 11/12/2021 8:09 AM ET

Crypto currency market capitalization declined by 1.54 percent overnight to $2.79 trillion as inflation stoked a fierce combat between digital and fiat currencies, that intensified with the Dollar Index surging to a multi-month high. Dollar Index, that measures the U.S. Dollar against a basket of 6 currencies is currently at 95.12, a level last seen in July 2020, when Bitcoin was trading near $10,000.00.

Safe haven demand in the Dollar has exerted direct pressure not just on cryptocurrency prices denominated in Dollars, but also on Gold, the closest competitor in the race for reckoning as the best inflation hedge. The yellow-metal is currently trading at $1854.58 per troy ounce, a drop of 0.50 percent from the previous' day's levels.

Bitcoin is currently trading at $63,720.20, 7 percent lower than its all-time-high of $68,789.63.

Meanwhile reports suggest that Bitcoin is bracing for the Taproot upgrade, the first major upgrade since 2017. The upgrade is expected to improve Bitcoin's privacy, programmability and scripting capacity to bring it in line with competing blockchains that already have programmable smart contracts.

The Taproot upgrade is expected to introduce MAST and Schnorr signatures. MAST or Merkelized Abstract Syntax Tree would make it difficult to trace and analyze Bitcoin transactions by making complex transactions indistinguishable from basic transactions. Schnorr signatures, would create smaller transaction sizes through data aggregation and help save on fees. In short, developers can create more extensive Bitcoin applications, while end-users can gain from cheaper, more private transactions.

Ethereum is currently trading at $4,587.09, 5 percent away from the all-time-high of $4,859.50 recorded on November 10.

Market capitalization of Smart Contracts decreased by almost 2 percent in a day to $839 billion and that of DeFi by more than 3 percent to $183 billion. Stablecoins market capitalization increased marginally to $140 billion. Metaverse attracted investors and its market capitalization increased by 10 percent to $32 billion. NFT market cap surged 5 percent to $62 billion. Meme assets suffered 1 percent decline and market capitalization dropped to $65 billion.

Among the top-100 crypto currencies by market capitalization, only 11 are making overnight gains. 37th ranked metaverse token Decentraland (MANA) is the best performing crypto token with an overnight gain of 37 percent. 31st ranked Hedera (HBAR) is the best performing crypto coin with an overnight rally of 10 percent.

Crypto token Basic Attention Token (BAT) ranked 76th in terms of market capitalization is the lead gainer in the DeFi category with an overnight rally of 10 percent.

ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) closed Thursday's trading at $41.62, down $0.69 or 1.63 percent from previous close. Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BTF) closed Thursday's trading at $25.66, down $0.40 or 1.53 percent from previous close. Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) closed Thursday's trade with a 2.30 percent cut.

Open interest or the total number of contracts in Chicago Mercantile Exchange's Bitcoin Futures decreased to 13656 contracts on Thursday, from 13742, a day ago.

Will Saturday's long-awaited upgrade to the Bitcoin Network influence the cryptocurrency's prices? The count-down begins.

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