Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and other major coins traded in the negative territory Wednesday evening as the global cryptocurrency market cap declined 1.8% to $2.1 trillion.
What Happened: The apex coin was down 1% at $41,837.84 over 24 hours. For the week, it has fallen 4.8%.
Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) fell 1.3% to $3,116.99 over 24 hours. Over a seven-day period, it has fallen 7.6%.
Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) shed 1% to $0.16 over 24 hours. Over the week, it has risen 1.4%.
DOGE-rival Shiba Inu (SHIB) declined 2% to $0.0000275 over 24 hours. Over the last seven days, it has plunged 14%.
Theta Fuel (TFUEL), FTX Token (FTT), and BitTorrent (BTT) were the three top gainers over 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.
TUFEL spiked 6.6% to $0.195, FTT rose 6.3% to $47.41, while BTT was up 5.2% at $0.0027 in the period.
See Also: How To Buy Bitcoin (BTC)
Why It Matters: Bitcoin is “floating” between support at $40,000 and resistance near the $45,000 mark, according to Craig Erlam, a senior market analyst at OANDA.
“Bitcoin appears to have gotten lost in the noise of the last few weeks. It's not falling too hard despite risk assets getting pummelled but it's not recovering to any great extent either,” wrote Erlam, in an emailed note.
Erlam’s colleague at OANDA, Edward Moya, pointed to a reiteration from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler that SEC remains focused on regulating cryptocurrency exchanges and that climate risk and Environmental, Social and Governance rules are key priorities for 2022.
On Wednesday Bitcoin-bull and MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR) CEO Michael Saylor shared a statement from the Bitcoin Mining Council (BMC), a voluntary global forum of Bitcoin mining companies.
Q4 #Bitcoin Mining Council Survey Confirms Improvements in Sustainable Power Mix and Technological Efficiency. Estimated sustainable energy mix was 58.5%. Join us at 5pm ET today for a full briefing.https://t.co/t1gTZV9GtT
— Michael Saylor (@saylor) January 18, 2022
Saylor, a key member of the Council, said the organization has confirmed improvements in the sustainable power mix and technological efficiency of Bitcoin.
BMC says it has successfully collected sustainable energy information from over 46% of the global Bitcoin network as of Dec. 31, 2021, through its latest survey.
Results indicate 66.1% of participants are utilizing electricity with a sustainable power mix. Based on this data, BMC said it estimates the global mining industry’s sustainable electricity mix had grown to approximately 58.5% during the fourth quarter of 2021, an increase of 1% year-over-year.
Marcus Sotiriou, an analyst with United Kingdom-based digital asset broker GlobalBlock, said $40,000-$41,000 is a “key region of support for Bitcoin,” in a note, seen by Benzinga.
Sotiriou said fundamentals for Bitcoin “could not be stronger right now.” He cited Intel Corporation’s (NASDAQ:INTC) announcement regarding the reveal of an energy-efficient Bitcoin mining ASIC at the upcoming IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference next month as one such positive development surrounding the apex coin.
“The fact that a $200+ billion tech firm is providing solutions for Bitcoin mining is more confirmation of big players entering the crypto space. Intel’s system proposes to reduce overall power consumption by approximately 15%. This increase in energy efficiency will help more institutional investors enter the space as environmental friendliness is one of their key priorities,” wrote Sotiriou.
Bitcoin Whales, meanwhile, are back in action. Santiment data indicates big investors piled on 40,000 BTC in the last 2 days. Whales are now “back to owning the same amount from before their dump began at $49k,” the financial market data platform on Twitter said.
#Bitcoin has rebounded, and is +$1,000 in price the past 5 hours. Now sitting at $42.4k, this comes after whales have accumulated 40k more $BTC in the past 2 days alone. They now are back to owning the same amount from before their dump began at $49k. https://t.co/1ZnyrYpr1S pic.twitter.com/vR2GgXPUlZ
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) January 19, 2022
