Bitcoin Calms at $24K as Ethereum Classic (ETC) Soars 10% Daily: Market Watch

The past 24 hours saw the cryptocurrency market calm down a bit, with no major changes happening across the top 10 coins by means of total capitalization. However, some cryptocurrencies performed better than others, so let’s dive in.

Bitcoin Calms at $24,000

After a serious run-up from $22,800 to almost $25,000 in the previous two days, Bitcoin’s price has finally calmed down and trades at around the $24K mark.

It appears that the volatility surrounding the announcement of July’s CPI numbers has passed, and now the market is in search of the next direction.

That said, BTC failed to overcome the $25K level before retracing to where it currently trades, but overall – in the past 24 hours – it’s down some 2%.

Altcoins Flat, Red Prevails

Despite the relative calmness, it appears that the market is taking a breather from the recent rallies and is trading predominantly in the red.

As seen in the heatmap above, most of the cryptocurrencies are down slightly in the past day. The most obvious outlier is Ethereum Classic (ETC). It managed to increase by a whopping 10% in an otherwise boring market. It’s worth noting that this increase came on the back of more news associated with the Ethereum 2.0 merge, meaning that investors might be hedging against the possibility of a failure.

Other major gainers include Huobi Token (up 20%) and ANKR (up 40%). The latest soared after Binance Labs revealed a strategic investment in Ankr Protocol without disclosing the actual amount.

Meanwhile, the market sentiment continues to improve. According to the Cryptocurrency Fear & Greed Index, which currently sits at 42 basis points, the prevailing sentiment is still “fear.” However, this time last month, the index was at 15 basis points, meaning that the past 30 days saw meaningful improvement.