A side trend in the second half of January replaced the rise in the value of cryptocurrencies at the beginning of the year, which should have alarmed investors. The beginning of February demonstrated that the worries were justified.
When it closed below $22,000 on February 9, Bitcoin displayed its lowest levels in 20 days. The very first cryptocurrency in the world generally had a down week; only on Tuesday was BTC able to gain slightly more than 2%. It decreased by approximately 7% over the week of February 3, from $23,434 to $21,815 on the evening of Friday, February 10.
The Cryptocurrencies are Flailing Because of the Recent Developments in Other Fields
The market’s present state was influenced by the largely unfavorable news. On February 9, information concerning the SEC’s investigation against the Kraken exchange became public. The Securities and Exchange Commission requested a number of things, including an end to staking activity. Before that, Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, said that staking for American retail consumers should be entirely prohibited. The limitations on the cryptocurrencies have had an impact on Bitcoin even though it is based on the PoW consensus method rather than PoS (i.e., it is based on mining rather than staking).
Fed has Surmised the Situation of the Market
Statistics about the American labor market had particular importance. It was worse than imagined. Fed analysts predicted that 190,000 people would apply for unemployment. It really came out to be 196,000. For the first time since December 19, 2022, this number increased.
The market was also stunned to learn that Local Bitcoins, one of the oldest P2P platforms on the market, had shut down. The popularity of the cryptocurrency exchange, which has been declining since the end of December 2017, was the primary cause of the work halt.
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