Major coins remained lackluster Monday evening as the global cryptocurrency market cap decreased 2.6% to $2.15 trillion.
What Happened: The apex cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), traded 1.6% lower over 24 hours at $42,346.42. It has risen 1.1% over a seven-day period.
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Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) fell 3.2% over 24 hours at $3,232.69. Over the week, ETH has gained 4.7%.
Meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) dropped 2.5% over 24 hours at $0.18. For the week, it has shot up 20.6%.
DOGE-rival Shiba Inu (SHIB) traded 3.7% lower at $0.00003. Over the last seven days, it has risen 9.3%.
The top 24-hour gainer over 24 hours was Cardano ( ADA), which spiked 12.8% over 24 hours to $1.59. Over a seven-day window, it has soared 40.8%.
Other notable gainers over 24 hours were Litecoin (LTC), IOTA (MIOTA), and BitTorrent (BTT), according to CoinGecko data.
LTC rose 4% at $152.10, MIOTA gained 3.3% at $1.17, while BTT was up 2% at $0.003 in the period.
See Also: How To Buy Bitcoin (BTC)
Why It Matters: Bitcoin and ETH touched respective intraday lows of $41,640.63 and $3,156.67 amid lower trading volumes as the United States marked the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday.
Cardano broke away from the low transaction volume trends on Monday, a fact noted by cryptocurrency investor Lark Davis on Twitter. Davis’ tweet, in turn, got a tongue-in-cheek reply from Cardano creator Charles Hoskinson.
Just getting started Lark, it's just January https://t.co/ToJ923QOAk
— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) January 17, 2022
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In the past three months, the number of whales that hold more than 10,000 BTC have risen 12.7% from the 9-year all-time low number recorded in late October, according to Santiment, a financial data and content platform.
In the past 3 months, 10 new #Bitcoin whale addresses have reappeared that hold 10k or more $BTC. This is a 12.7% increase from the 9-year all-time low amount of mega whale addresses that were recorded in late October. https://t.co/XxxWNnm7sL pic.twitter.com/CWzcrnG1Pf
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) January 17, 2022
Big Bitcoin accounts were piling on the coins at the beginning of December but the trend stagnated towards the end of month. Even as the pace of Bitcoin accumulation by whales slowed down, smaller BTC accounts or fishes started accumulating since the end of 2021, noted Delphi Digital, in an emailed note.
Even though retail accumulation could be construed as a positive sign by some, the missing whale action could spell trouble for the apex coin.
“It’s obviously an ideal scenario to see whales in accumulation, as this tends to coincide with positive price action for BTC. The lack of whales increasing their BTC holdings could suggest there’s more blood to come,” wrote Delphi Digital.
Meanwhile, on Monday, Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin tweeted a paper by researchers at Peking University and Duke University on the consequences of the implementation of London Hard Fork in August.
“We find that waiting time significantly reduces after London Hardfork possibly as a result of easier gas price bidding and variablesized blocks,” the researchers wrote.
The researchers’ findings indicate that the hardfork did not lower the transaction fee level but it “enabled easier fee estimation for users.”
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