Ethereum Spikes 5% to 6-Day High, Bitcoin Eyes $22K (Market Watch)

Following several days of sideways trading, bitcoin finally took a small step forwards and challenged the $22,000 mark.

Most altcoins are well in the green today, led by gains from Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. The former is up by 5% to a 6-day high, while the latter has soared by double digits.

Can Bitcoin Take Down $22K?

Ever since last week’s price tumble, which drove bitcoin from a multi-month peak of $25,200 to a multi-week low of under $21,000, the cryptocurrency has been struggling.

It calmed around $21,000 and stood there for days aside from a few brief pumps and dumps. The situation finally seemed to start changing hours ago when BTC initiated a leg up and neared $22,000.

However, it was stopped just before reaching that line. As of now, it stands inches away from it, while the bulls hope to make a run later.

As such, its market cap has added a few billions in a day and stands at $415B now. Its dominance over the altcoins, though, has taken a hit and is down below 40% once more.

ETH and ETC Lead the Way

The alternative coins were also quite stagnant in the past few days but today comes with more gains.

Ethereum is among the most notable examples. The asset had tumbled from $2,050 to $1,550 in a matter of days but started recovering some ground earlier this week. Another 5% increase in the past 24 hours has pushed the second-largest crypto to a 6-day high of over $1,700, which leads to the question of whether the upcoming Merge has been priced in.

Binance Coin has also tapped a multi-day high of its own above $300 after a 3% daily increase. Ripple, Cardano, Solana, Dogecoin, Polkadot, Shiba Inu, Avalanche, and Polygon are also in the green now.

Ethereum Classic has gained the most from the larger-cap alts. ETC is up by more than 11% and trades close to $40.

The crypto market cap has added about $30 billion in a day and sits at $1.050 trillion now.

Industry News

Unlike its main rival, USDC, Tether – the issuer of USDT – said it had not frozen any addresses linked to the infamous crypto mixer – Tornado Cash.

Speaking of the crypto tumbler, which was recently sanctioned by US authorities, researchers reuploaded the code to GitHub, arguing it is freedom of speech.