Your guide to Bitcoin, Ethereum and Web 3.0
This week in coins. Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt.
After a short dip last week, Bitcoin and Ethereum continued their steady growth in 2023 with modest gains this week. All the while, however, several other leading cryptocurrencies posted significant rallies.
Bitcoin (BTC) has added just over 1% to its value over the past seven days and is currently trading just above $23,400. The difficulty of Bitcoin mining hit a new all-time high this week as miners continue to deploy more hardware to mine the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, despite the sector being hit by rising energy prices and a recent wave of bankruptcies.
The share price of Bitcoin-exposed cloud software company MicroStrategy has risen nearly 100% since the start of 2023 and increased 12% over five days this week. MicroStrategy Chairman Michael Saylor is a major Bitcoin bull and has filled his company’s war chest with 132,500 BTC – worth over $3.1 billion today.
Ethereum (ETH) rose 5% and is currently trading at around $1,680, according to data from CoinGecko. The network on Wednesday tested the withdrawal function of the long-awaited upcoming Shanghai upgrade, which will finally enable validators to withdraw their earnings. Validators currently have to stake 32 ETH (almost $54,000 worth) to validate transactions and earn rewards.
Both market leaders dipped short on Monday in anticipation of another round of rate hikes from the Federal Reserve. Last year, the US central bank raised interest rates by 75 basis points – the steepest increases since 1994 – four times in total, before rounding off the year with another 50 basis point increase. Crypto prices came back quickly on news of the latest hike, announced on Wednesdaywhich was only 25 basis points.
The MATIC token of Ethereum scaling network Polygon rose nearly 10% on the week to trade at $1.27 at the time of writing. Several individual NFTs were sold on Polygon than Ethereum via leading marketplace OpenSea for second month in a row in January, according to analytics by Dune, amid a growing push for brands and Web3 games on the platform.
Other notable rallies among the top 30 cryptocurrencies by market cap include Ethereum Classic (ETC), which surged 9% to around $24, Cosmos (ATOM) also rose 9% to just under $15, Litecoin (LTC) rose 12% to around $99 , and the popular Ethereum-based meme token Shiba Inu (SHIB) is up 29% to $0.00001513 at the time of writing.
Render (RNDR), the token behind the blockchain-based distributed rendering solution Render Network, skyrocketed watery eyes 95% this week after a new foundation was formed and DAO voters adopted a new tokenomics model.
Meanwhile, LEO Token (LEO) holders took heavy losses of over 11% this week. The official tool of the crypto exchange Bitfinex is currently trading at $3.41.
Finally, on the political side, the UK Treasury on Wednesday outlined a regulatory regime for crypto businesses in the UK. The proposal states that companies wishing to set up shop in the UK must obtain authorization from regulators. Treasury also acknowledged a need to accommodate cryptos”unique properties.”
