Ethereum price shows instability while altcoin adoption grows
Despite rising retail and institutional adoption across the altcoin landscape, Ethereum’s value has remained quite shaky.
- ETH’s market valuation and dominance index currently stand at $375 billion and 19%, respectively.
- Popular American theatre chain AMC announced recently that it now accepts payments in Dogecoin and Shiba Inu.
- Circle-backed stablecoin USDC’s circulating supply grew radically throughout 2021, with the metric fast approaching that of USDTs.
Ethereum (ETH) has failed to find consistent support above the all-important $3,000 psychological threshold, resulting in the altcoin showcasing fortnightly losses of approximately 15%. At press time, ETH is trading at $3,114.
The current volatility comes despite an increasing number of prominent altcoins witnessing continued global adoption. AMC Theatres, one of America’s largest cinema chains, recently updated its payment terms. It allows patrons to use Dogecoin and Shiba Inu for various in-app purchases, including ticket acquisitions. The company first started accepting crypto payments back in Q4 2021, letting users buy movie tickets via Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin.
Similarly, Asian crypto payments firm Nium also released an API solution in conjunction with BitPay, allowing users to start buying and selling everyday products via digital currencies.
Doge dip incoming?
Following last week’s rally that saw the price of Dogecoin (DOGE) increase quite substantially — thanks in large part to Tesla CEO’s offer to buy out Twitter entirely — the wildly popular memecoin has started to show signs of monetary weakness. DOGE’s value has dipped by approximately 7% over the last seven-day stretch.
As per many pundits, the currency’s emerging technical patterns suggest that the coming few days could see Dogecoin slip even further, potentially registering losses over 30%.
Is Tether’s market clout sustainable?
Tether and Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino stated in an interview that despite more USD-pegged stablecoins entering the crypto market in recent months, USDT remains the gold standard of what this niche has to offer. “If you see the volumes of Tether compared to the rest of stablecoins, they are insanely higher. They are even 10 times higher on a bad day,” he pointed out.
Statistical data from Arcane Research shows that USDC, the world’s second-largest stablecoin offering, has also grown exponentially over the last 12 months. It has the potential to overtake Tether as far as market capitalization goes.
Former Ripple advisor to head Fed vice chair for supervision?
After it came to light that ex-Federal Reserve Board governor Sarah Bloom Raskin withdrew her name from the nomination fray, President Joe Biden revealed that he plans to introduce Michael Barr as the Fed’s vice chair for supervision. Barr has previously worked for the Obama administration and is currently a law professor at the University of Michigan. He was also on the advisory board from 2015 to 2017 for Ripple Labs, the company behind the controversial cryptocurrency XRP.
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.
