Crypto On Jan 17: Market Turns Red As Bitcoin, Ether Plunge; Cardano Zooms

The week began with the cryptocurrency market turning red barring Cardano which continued gaining momentum Monday. The global market cap was down 0.84% at $2.06 trillion as of 2.35 a.m. ET.

Cardano zoomed 11.18% and was trading at $1.51. This was a whopping 28.56% increase compared to the previous week.

The support, as suggested by InvestorPlace analyst Joel Baglole, came as the token hit several key milestones in recent weeks. ADA-USD has exceeded over 20 million transactions with no downtime in over 1500 days of operation and Cardano is also held in over one million digital wallets globally.

"Both of these achievements are significant and have helped the price recover from its autumn selloff," Baglole wrote last week.

On the other hand, the market turned red as top coins Bitcoin and Ethereum continued to slide. BTC fell 0.74% to $42,852, CoinMarketCap data showed. Ethereum too slid 1.30% to $3293.

However, experts remain optimistic about a bullish trend ahead.

"The latest inflation rate in the U.S. coupled with the lower interest rate could favour Bitcoin and we could see Bitcoin making new highs. The key support for Bitcoin remains at $40K and a breakout above $45,000 could see a bullish trend ahead," WazirX Trade Desk told International Business Times.

"Ethereum set a new record for burning $400 million worth of coins in a week. The weekly trend pattern for ETH continues to trade at the support level. Immediate support is expected at $2,730. With major inflow of funds, and a possible bullish trend for Bitcoin, Ethereum and other alts could surge," the trade desk added.

All other top coins were trading in the red. Meme cryptos Shiba Inu and Dogecoin too plunged.

Meanwhile, as BTC’s prominence begins to waver, Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX noted that bitcoin payment service provider BitPay saw a 27% drop in merchants processing bitcoin payments in 2021, and a rise in transactions in stablecoins, ETH and Doge.

"With altcoins gaining ground amongst retail investors, we may see other digital assets challenging BTC’s pole position and place as a safe haven asset in 2022," the CoinDCX Research Team told International Business Times.

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