Bitcoin Climbs Higher Even Though Fed Speeds Taper; IMF’s Gita Gopinath Says Emerging Economies Should Regulate Cryptos

While the Federal Reserve concluded its December meeting on Wednesday, announcing it will speed up the taper of its asset-purchase program, Bitcoin (BTC) continued to climb higher as trading volume increased. Earlier, it was feared that tapering action would hit Bitcoin as many investors bought it as a hedge against inflation.

In other news that could affect cryptocurrencies, International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief economist Gita Gopinath on Wednesday said that emerging economies should regulate cryptocurrencies but not ban them, according to an Economic Times report.

Bitcoin was last seen trading at $49,082.57 at 8.40 am indicating a 2.25 per cent rise in the last 24 hours. Closest rival Ethereum, however, saw its trading volume jump by a metaphoric 30.05 per cent at $26,686,372,591. Currently, it is trading at $4,030.12, posting a gain of 5.37 per cent, according to coinmarketcap.com data.

Algorand, dubbed as the Ethereum killer, is trading near its day’s high. It is up by 4.75 per cent at $1.43. It’s market cap stands at $9,075,406,040.

Major coins Binance Coin (BNB) is up by 1.86 per cent at $535.24, whileCardano (ADA) is also trading near its day’s high at $1.30, indicating an increase of 4.10 per cent over the last 24 hours. Solana (SOL) posted a massive gain of 10.80 per cent and is currently available for $177.21.

Today’s biggest gainer was Anti-Lockdown (FREE) with 602.23 per cent gains, it is now trading at $0.003675.

The top loser was MetaShiba (MSHIBA) which plunged by 98.16 per cent to $0.000000000215. 

Meme Coins

After Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s announcement a day before that the company may buy merchandise using Dogecoin (DOGE), the coin was up by almost 20 per cent. But, as of today, at 8.53 am, it slipped into the red territory indicating some profit booking activity. It is now trading at $0.1815, a loss of 0.69 per cent.

 Rival Shiba Inu, however, trades in the green, up 1.76 per cent at $0.00003424.

ELON is up by 1.63 percent at $0.000001187, while FLOKI is down by 2.25 per cent at $0.0001425, according to data from coinmarketcap.com.

 Latest Updates

Coinmarketcap.com suffered a massive glitch on Tuesday which resulted in incorrect reporting of prices of various crypto(s). Crypto.com chief executive Kris Marszalek has blamed popular data provider Coinmarketcap.com and said that they were working on removing the “unreliable price feed” from their website, reported Bloomberg.com.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief economist Gita Gopinath said on Wednesday that there is need for a global policy on cryptocurrencies.

“Regulating crypto assets and currencies is essential, especially for emerging and developing economies, as banning them may not work as crypto exchanges are located offshore, which makes it easier for an individual to trade in them despite the ban,” Gopinath said, delivering a lecture on ‘Global Recovery and Policy Challenges in 2022’ organised by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), Economic Times reported.

Meanwhile, the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) has carried out a raid in about 69 places in Chennai, Salem, Karur, Coimbatore and Namakkal at locations linked to senior AIADMK leader and former minister P. Thangamani, according to a Hindustan Times report. The DVAC said Thangamani invested “huge amounts” in crypto assets.

There is information that they have invested huge amounts from the ill-gotten money in crypto assets, reported India Today.

The DVAC has named P Thangamani as the first accused and his son Dharanidharan was named co-accused number-two and lastly, his wife Santhi was named co-accused number-three in the said FIR.