Bitcoin and Ethereum are only recovering a little - but these 3 altcoins are exploding

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Cryptocurrencies have also caused a lot of turmoil among regulators in Washington this week. Last week was the first truly red week of 2023 – thanks to the SEC crackdown on Kraken and staking. Although this once again shook confidence in cryptocurrencies, most of the main cryptocurrencies managed to recover this week.

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Bitcoin is pumping – ordinals are helping

Bitcoin (BTC), for example, is up 13.7% over the past seven days to reach $24,608 as of Saturday morning, according to CoinGecko data. The number one cryptocurrency in the world is currently fueled by the success of Ordinals – a popular NFT project on the BTC blockchain.

Due to its limited smart contract functionality (compared to its closest competitor, Ethereum), Bitcoin is not exactly known for NFTs. But the number of serial numbers placed on it has reached 130,000 since the project began last month.

Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH), the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, is up 12% in the past seven days and is currently trading at around $1,700.

Both market leaders briefly traded sideways on Valentine’s Day as investors awaited the results of the latest US Consumer Price Index (CPI) report. Inflation was 6.4% in January, 0.2% better than expected, but has been broadly declining since June last year.

Cardano (ADA) saw a 12% price increase after the network released its “Valentine” upgrade. Valentine improves cross-chain functionality and security for dapps on Cardano. The native token price of the blockchain is currently around $0.40.

Strong gains were also seen in Avalanche (AVAX) up 10.4% to $19.66, Tron (TRX) up 12% to $0.07, Litecoin (LTC) up 10% to a higher $101, Solana (SOL) up 14% to $23, Lido DAO ( LIDO) up 13% to $3 and Polkadot (DOT, +17%).

But three other names from the top 30 blew the rest out of the water: Filecoin (FIL) rose 55% to $7.43, OKB climbed 30% in seven days to $52.98, and Polygon (MATIC) jumped 25% to $1.54.

None of the top 30 cryptocurrencies by market cap have seen any significant losses – and almost all of them have appreciated this week.

Changes in encryption policy in Europe and North and South America

Last week’s rally came despite regulatory advice not improving.

For example, on Tuesday, the financial regulator of the United Kingdom, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), issued a press release that it is cracking down on unregistered crypto ATMs after seeing several of them in the city of Leeds, England.

According to Mark Steward, Executive Director of Enforcement and Market Supervision at the FCA:

“Crypto companies operating in the UK are required to be registered with the FCA for anti-money laundering reasons.”

On the same day, lawmakers and experts met in Washington DC to discuss cryptocurrency regulation but failed to reach a consensus, with some proposing a stricter approach than others. Notably, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler was absent – despite being one of the industry’s most vocal and visible potential regulators. Lawmakers pointed out that he should be present at the next hearing of the committee.

In addition, the European Central Bank (ECB) issued guidance on Wednesday telling European banks that, because of the inherent risk associated with cryptocurrencies, they should set caps on all holdings – even before the Committee’s global standards come into force Basel for Banking Supervision (BCBS) in place. in the year 2025.

The move comes a week after the EU published a new draft law that would require banks by law to assign the highest possible risk rating to cryptocurrencies.

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