Cryptocurrency prices recovered losses on Tuesday in global cryptocurrency markets. Bitcoin was trading 14 percent higher at $43,200, Ethereum was trading at $2,901 (10.61 percent higher), ripple was trading at $0.7688 (7.7 percent higher), Terra was trading at $88 (22 percent up), CoinDesk data revealed.
Solana was trading at $96.16 (11.5 percent up); Avalanche at $86.98 (up 19 percent), Cardano was trading 11.49 percent higher at $0.96 and Polkadot was 10.37 percent higher at $18.60, as per CoinDesk data.
Last week on Thursday (Feb 24), cryptocurrency prices faced steep decline when the decline hovered in the range of 8-16 percent.
Stellar was trading 9 percent higher, Dogecoin was 7.35 percent higher, Polygon was 10 percent higher and Shiba Inu was 9 percent higher.
| Date | Bitcoin ($) | Ethereum ($) |
| Feb 28 | 43,193 | 2,919 |
| Feb 27 | 37,709 | 2,621 |
| Feb 26 | 39,105 | 2,781 |
| Feb 25 | 39,214 | 2,764 |
(Source: CoinMarketCap)
While Russian invasion on February 24 rattled the global markets, causing adverse impacts on financial markets and crude oil, cryptocurrency is seen to offer a safe and reliable alternative notwithstanding its extreme volatility in prices.
Although crypto tokens have recovered some losses, they are still lower than their year-start prices. Bitcoin is lower by six percent in 2022 (year-to-date) whereas, it is still over 30 percent less than its record high of $69,000 it hit in November last year. Likewise, Ethereum is nearly 22 percent lower than its year-start price of $3,769.
Meanwhile, cryptocurrency industry is less than enthused since the Budget announcement where Finance Minister announced to levy 30 percent tax on crypto gains and one percent TDS on payments made in cryptocurrencies. This even led to some industry representatives knocking on the government’s door to reconsider their decision.
However, some crypto exchanges assert that there is no visible decline in the crypto investors as yet.
“The user behaviour on our platform is similar to what we would see on other business days,” says Ashish Singhal, Founder and CEO, CoinSwitch.
About the future of crypto industry in India, Mr Singhal says, "Blockchain and crypto projects can address India-specific issues of public good: E-voting, digital identity, certificate verification, and land record registry could be safely, securely, and seamlessly handled on the blockchain, enhancing India’s governance and transparency. Blockchain adoption in businesses and tokenization of real assets could add multiple billion dollars per sector to the Indian economy."
Mr Singhal adds, “We believe that a regulatory framework will further mainstream Crypto enthusiasts and Web3 builders to participate meaningfully in this technology revolution.”
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court recently asked the Centre to make its stand clear on whether cryptocurrency trade involving Bitcoin or any other such currencies is legal or not.
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Surya Kant is dealing with a case that relates to the quashing of several complaints filed against Ajay Bhardwaj for fleecing investors by wooing them to trade in Bitcoin in return for high returns.
So, one can discern that cryptocurrency prices are being true to their volatile character — rising to decline later, and declining to rise again. This time they have surged remarkably, but only to decline at a later date, perhaps.