Weekly Crypto Wrap: All that transpired in cryptocurrency this week

Cryptocurrency (Representative image: Reuters)

It was clearly the week of altcoins surging way past the cryptocurrency market formen Bitcoin and Ethereum to make a substantial mark. While Bitcoin ($49,235) saw a 7-day rise of 5.67 percent and Ethereum ($3,236) rose just 0.03 percent in the same time, altcoins like Cardano ($2.53) recorded a weekly jump of 17.47 percent, along with Cardano ($2.53) which spiked 17.47 percent, Polkadot ($27.72) which peaked 23.02 percent, Solana ($74.52), which rose almost 64.85 percent and Terra ($27.94), which hiked 63.44 percent.

In fact, Cardano, with a current market cap of 80,559,983,767 dollars overtook Binance Coin’s market capitalization ($75,750,693,612) as the third biggest cryptocurrency after Ethereum and Bitcoin. This is mostly thanks to its upcoming Alonzo upgrade, which will incorporate smart contracts, opening a range of applications like DeFi, NFTs, automated lending, and more and giving stiff competition to peers like Ethereum.

Closer home, crypto adoption in India is exponentially growing, with the country ranking second, succeeded by Vietnam amidst the countries that make a lion’s share of cryptocurrency usage, with 9 percent of the respondents claiming to utilize cryptocurrency, per market research firm Finder.

In fact, all five leading nations in terms of bitcoin ownership are located in Asia. Bitcoin (16 percent) is the most popular coin, followed by Ethereum and Bitcoin cash (6 percent) and Ripple (8 percent). While men (32 percent) take precedence over women (23 percent) in terms of possession, young adults (32 percent) aged between 18-24 when it comes to cryptocurrency ownership. Young adults lead the way with 32% of those aged 18-24 have invested in cryptocurrency.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman clarified the government’s stand on cryptocurrency, stating that the area has a lot of potential in terms of fuelling the country’s fintech sector. Notably, the work on the pending cryptocurrency regulation bill is nearly complete and the cabinet will decide further, with chances of it being presented in the winter parliament session

"We cannot be moving ahead as if this doesn't exist. We are not saying no to cryptocurrency. We are saying we will have to see how this technology can help fintech to maximize the potential it has. But how sophisticated regulation can be is something which I want to work with the RBI," she elaborated.

The necessity of regulations in this field, however, was highlighted in the recent case of cryptocurrencies worth 97 million dollars being stolen from the digital currency wallets of Liquid, a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange. In the meantime, all deposits and withdrawals on the platform have been suspended.

Furthermore, terrorist groups like ISIS have begun receiving funds in bitcoins as well, External Minister S Jaishankar said. The money flow, resource mobilization, and killing rewards to ISIL (Daesh) in Syria, Iraq, and its affiliates in Africa have increased in recent times, he explained.