Crypto enthusiasts and investors are closely monitoring the weekend developments as Bitcoin experiences a significant surge, reclaiming a value above $43,000. The recent market dynamics showcase Bitcoin’s resilience after a recent dip to $38,500, marking a local bottom.
In the last 24 hours, Bitcoin skyrocketed by 2%, demonstrating its ability to recover swiftly. This surge has implications not only for Bitcoin but also for the broader crypto market.
Crypto happenings ahead of the historic negative weekend sentiments
Fluctuations in the altcoin market accompany the bullish movement of Bitcoin over the weekend. Despite Bitcoin’s strong performance, certain alternative cryptocurrencies are retracing harder, indicating a nuanced trend in the crypto space. Here are signs to watch out for as the weekend kickstarts.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) is worth $43,041.22, down 0.0% from an hour ago and up 2.6% from yesterday. BTC’s value today is 4.2% more than it was seven days ago. In the last 24 hours, the total volume of Bitcoin transactions was $20,712,959,092.
The global crypto market valuation is now $1.73 trillion, up 2.42% in the last 24 hours and 54.65% from a year ago. BTC has a market cap of $846 billion, reflecting a 48.81% domination. Meanwhile, stablecoins’ market cap is $137 billion, accounting for 7.89% of the total crypto market cap.
To start the weekend off, Binance made some headlines in regard to Ripple’s XRP. Binance froze $4.2 million worth of XRP following the $112 million breach on Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen’s personal wallet on January 31. Binance CEO Richard Teng made the information public, stating:
Teng commended on-chain detective ZachXBT and the Ripple team for their collaboration and assistance. The hacker who carried out the attack did not use crypto mixer services or decentralized exchanges to conceal their identity. Most exploiters have recently ceased using centralized exchanges to avoid having their assets frozen.
Polygon Labs announces massive layoffs
The developer of the Polygon ecosystem, Polygon Labs, announced significant personnel reductions on February 1.
Executive Director Marc Boiron stated in a blog post that sixty employees would be laid off “for the sake of enhanced performance.” He characterized the reductions as “difficult but necessary,” emphasizing that the decision was not based on financial considerations. The result was a 15% pay increase for every remaining employee, as announced by the CEO.
The banking and technology industries began 2024 with widespread cutbacks. The asset manager in charge of one of the initial Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), BlackRock, intends to reduce its workforce by 3%. Also, Block Inc., managed by Jack Dorsey, reportedly laid off one thousand employees.
Solana overtakes Ethereum in DeFi
On January 30, the price of Solana momentarily broke $100 for the first time in 2024. However, just 48 hours later, on February 1, crypto values fell when Fed Chief Jerome Powel made controversial statements implying that rate decreases would be delayed beyond March 2024, as generally forecast.
Jerome Powell’s comments came following a planned Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on January 31. It sparked a substantial decline in risk assets such as stocks and cryptocurrency markets.
Solana DeFi trade volume patterns for January 2024 indicate that this week’s 12.3% SOL price drop is unlikely to be driven by a corresponding decline in basic network usefulness.
DeFillama’s DEX trade volume measure tracks and analyses the nominal value of crypto transactions across many decentralized exchanges. This essentially reflects the liquidity and investor activity in a decentralized financial ecosystem powered by blockchain.
A deeper look at the chart reveals that Solana has seen a 15.2% growth in trade volumes over the last week, surpassing Arbitrum (ARB) and Ethereum (ETH) to take first place.
An increase in trade volume on a blockchain network indicates that native tokens are in high demand. If the current upswing in Solana network involvement and Defi activity continues, the SOL price will soon begin to recover.
