Bitcoin price remains volatile as Russia-Ukraine peace talks remain lacklustre
Negotiators have been unable to get the 2 nations to arrive at any ceasefire guarantees, resulting in a lot of financial turmoil globally.
- Most large-cap cryptos including BTC, ETH, AVAX and ADA have incurred heavy losses (in excess of 10%) since the start of the month.
- Investment firm VanEck is seeking approval for a new ETF designed to track the performance of various BTC and gold mining firms.
- Bitcoin's market dominance index (DI) currently stands at 41%.
The last 72-odd hours have continued to see Bitcoin showcase a high degree of volatility, with the flagship crypto currently hovering around the AUD$52,000 (US$38,000) range. As a result, BTC's fortnightly gains stand at 4.5% while trading at a price point of AUD$53,244.
The stock market and digital asset sectors seem to be reacting adversely to Russia and Ukraine's lack of common consensus in their negotiations designed to end hostilities between the 2 nations. While small advancements have been made – such as the opening up of a new civilian exit corridor – neither country has been able to come to a ceasefire or security guarantee.
The American stock market is currently seeing red, with the S&P500 registering losses of approximately 3% on Monday. Additionally, the commodities sector has also witnessed a number of unprecedented spikes, with metals like nickel suddenly reaching an all-time high of US$100,000 per tonne mark on the London Metal Exchange earlier this week.
Other commodities like wheat have also witnessed random surges, with prices jumping by 17% earlier this week (while registering a year-to-date gain ratio of over 75%). A little over 48 hours ago, the Bitcoin/rouble pair hit a new all-time high of 5 million roubles per token on Binance.
Despite Bitcoin's weak positioning as a safe haven, a number of analysts have continued to claim that the currency's correlation with the stock market is not to be taken at face value, with Marty Bent, founder of prominent media firm TFTC, noting:
"When the dust settles, Bitcoin will be the biggest benefactor because the masses will realize a distributed system that cannot be controlled by a single person, government, corporation or coalition is the only thing they can trust."
Marketwide carnage is being witnessed currently
Over the last 7 days, the total market cap of the crypto industry has been faced with an 11.5% drop to AUD$2.42T (US$1.76T), thus completely erasing the gains that were registered by the sector late last month – a time when Bitcoin was able to seemingly break out of its bearish trend and scale up to a price point of AUD$62,000 (US$45,000).
Since the beginning of March, no large-cap asset has been able to garner any sort of positive price action, with Ethereum, Luna, Solana, Cardano and Avalanche all registering losses in excess of 12%.
VanEck files new ETF application
Investment giant VanEck, which has more than US$80 billion worth of assets under management (AUM), recently revealed that it has submitted an application with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a new exchange traded fund (ETF) tracking the activities of companies actively investing in gold and Bitcoin mining.
Interested in cryptocurrency? Learn more about the basics with our beginner's guide to Bitcoin, dive deeper by learning about Ethereum and see what blockchain can do with our simple guide to DeFi.
Disclosure: The author owns a range of cryptocurrencies at the time of writing
