Cryptocurrency Price Today LIVE: Bitcoin Stays Below $20,000; Ethereum Slips 16.5% in a Week

Cryptocurrency Price Today: The global cryptocurrency market on Saturday, September 17, extended its previous day’s losses led by Ethereum, which plunged sharply after the Merge was implemented. The Merge further impacted the crypto markets on Friday, which was already grappling with a shock US inflation data. At the time of writing this article, the market cap stood at $961.89 billion, down by 0.05 per cent in the last 24 hours.

“Last week was full of ‘high impact’ macro events, with the US CPI inflation rate for August the primary market mover. At 8.3 per cent, the rate was higher than estimated 8.1 per cent and the more sticky component core inflation too beat estimates at 6.3 per cent. This shock on the upside, torpedoed prices across asset classes, including US equities, Gold and Crypto,” said Parth Chaturvedi, Crypto Ecosystem Lead at CoinSwitch.

“Surprisingly though, Crypto markets recovered much better than other risk-on assets, as the ETH Merge took centre stage. Amidst heightened volatility and trading volumes, Ethereum transitioned to Proof of Stake consensus mechanisms, reducing its energy consumption by 99 per cent. Additionally, there’s a ‘Triple Halving’ of ETH supply and the asset is now deflationary,” he added.

Bitcoin price today jumped by 0.83 per cent but remained below the $20,000 mark. At the time of writing this article, Bitcoin price was standing at $19,870.25 per cent, data from CoinMarketCap showed. Over the past week, Bitcoin has fallen 6.85 per cent.

“The crypto market has been on a downward trend this week as the sentiment around the cryptocurrencies remained bearish after the U.S inflation data disappointed the investors, which rose than expected. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and most cryptocurrencies experienced the heat wave as the sentiment post the data release weakened. Bitcoin rose above the US$22,000 level on Monday but fell to US$19,000 mid-week. If BTC breaks below its current level, its next support level would be at US$19,500,” said Edul Patel.

Meanwhile, Ether tanked by over 9 per cent on Friday and extended its losses on Saturday following the Merge. Ethereum price today at the time of writing this article was $1,432.66, down by 2.16 per cent over the past day. In the last week, Ether prices slipped by 16.52 per cent.

“The second largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum, slipped below the US$1,500 level despite the Merge being a resounding success transitioning from PoW to PoS. However, the Merge may not have any immediate impact on the price action of ETH now as it takes some time for the market participants to digest such significant events. If ETH fails to hold above the current level, we may see ETH test the US$1,300 level again,” said Patel.

“BTC outperformed ETH over the course of the week, as Fidelity announced its plans to offer BTC exposure to its retail trading clients. Amongst altcoins, the focus remains on ADA as the upcoming Vasil hard fork approaches,” added…