Market Crashes As Russia Proposes Ban On Cryptos

Total cryptocurrency payments rocketed 567 percent to $15.8 trillion in 2021, according to Chainalysis

The cryptocurrency market saw a sharp downrush Friday, a day after Russia's central bank announced plans of banning the use of cryptos in the country. Top coins Bitcoin and Ethereum traded below expectations, pulling down the global market cap 8% to $1.83 trillion as of 2.05 a.m. ET.

Bitcoin fell 7.88% to $38,695. This is a huge plunge for the top coin which touched a record high of over $69k on Nov. 9 last year. Ethereum too plunged 9.22% to $2,853, CoinMarketCap data showed.

Barring a slight uptick in Tether, all of the top 10 coins were trading in the red. Meme cryptos Dogecoin and Shiba Inu too slid. SHIB fell to the 15th position on the chart.

Apart from the news from Russia, rising inflation in the U.S. also remain an area of concern for the investors.

Experts remain hopeful of recovery

However, experts remain confident of the fact that the market will bounce back shortly, referring to China's crypto ban.

"While this may be a cause for concern, the crypto industry has weathered through multiple bans, restrictions and regulatory scrutiny over the years but have stood the test of time," CoinDCX Research Team told International Business Times.

"Looking back at how the sector bounced back shortly after China’s crypto ban, we can expect the sell-off to have a little long-term impact on crypto’s performance besides this brief initial dip."

India Blockchain Alliance founder Raj Kapoor, the Chief Growth Officer at Chainsense LTD, remains hopeful that the market will yield gains even as multiple reasons pull it back.

"Crypto markets are falling but all is not lost. No other asset class over the years have given returns like crypto. Crests and troughs are all a part of an investment journey, and this is one such rough patch. In fact, an opportunity for some cool picks at lower prices," Kapoor told International Business Times.

Shivam Thakral, chief executive officer at India's crypto exchange BuyUcoin, also sees this as an opportunity to invest in altcoins and NFTs.

"Investors may be moving their funds among various assets, such as altcoins and NFTs. Meta is also working on a new feature that will allow users to see NFTs from their Facebook and Instagram profiles," Thakral told International Business Times.

In other news, Google Labs has appointed a new team to focus on the up-and-coming tech to ramp up research work in the Blockchain sector. The main task of the team is to work on next-generation technologies in the distributed computing and data storage categories.

The crypto market is extremely volatile and experts recommend investors not make decisions based on the sudden shift in prices.