The cryptocurrency market rebounded late Sunday from Friday’s sell-off which saw the cryptocurrency market capitalization lose 8.78%, from trading 2.62 trillion in the early hours of the day to as low as 2.39 trillion.
The market capitalization, as of the time of this writing, currently stands at $2.57 trillion, a 7.5% recovery from Friday’s low according to Coinmarketcap.
Flagship cryptocurrency asset bitcoin has also almost recovered its losses from Friday, as it currently trades $57,400, up 7.15% from Friday’s close of $53,569.76.
Altcoins are also not left out as majority of the top 50 altcoins are posting single-digit gains in the Asian session.
The sell-off seen on Friday was as a result of investors’ fears of a new COVID-19 variant strain that was first detected in South Africa, which experts are saying is vaccine-resistant. The World Health Organization (WHO) has given the virus the designation ‘Omicron’ and have issued a statement explaining that this variant is ‘a variant of concern.’
What you should know
- The altcoin market was affected on Friday which sent many token prices downward. Ether, the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, fell briefly below $4,000 on Friday and then again on Sunday, despite Ethereum, its underlying blockchain, reaching a new milestone.
- Data from Dune Analytics revealed that unique addresses on Ethereum, the total decentralized finance users on the blockchain, broke four million this past week.
- The President of El Salvador took to twitter to announce that his nation has bought the dip to the tune of 100 BTC, amid market sell-off on Friday. This new addition brings the total BTC holdings of the Latin American nation to 1,220 BTC, worth approximately $66.4 million using a current market price of $54,400.
- The nation has immediately begun to see profit on its newly acquired Bitcoin holdings.
Data from Glassnode reveals that last week’s exchange flow, an on-chain metric that monitors the movement of cryptocurrencies from exchanges to private wallets and vice versa, had a positive flow, indicating that holders are selling their holdings.
BTC had a positive flow of $427.6 million and Ether also had a positive flow of $507.4 million.
Similar to the traditional asset market, the fate of the crypto market could face weeks of uncertainty as investors await omicron’s potential impact. The bitcoin Fear and Greed Index, which measures market emotions, entered “extreme fear” territory on Saturday, the lowest level since the end of September.
