Dogecoin Drops to Lowest Price in Nine Months as Crypto Market Sinks

The original meme coin is now down 81% from its all-time high in May 2021, continuing its gradual decline in value.

It’s a brutal day across the cryptocurrency market, which has shed about 13% of its overall value in the last 24 hours, per CoinGecko. And while the especially volatile meme coin Dogecoin has seen a lesser daily dip, it’s now at its lowest point in more than nine months.

Dogecoin is down nearly 9% over the last 24 hours to a current price just above $0.14, as of this writing, and it briefly dipped below the $0.14 mark this afternoon. DOGE has now dropped 18% over the last seven days, according to CoinGecko’s data.

Dropping under $0.14 today, Dogecoin reached its lowest point since mid-April 2021, when the long-running meme coin was in the midst of a social media-fueled surge that took its value from about $0.07 to $0.40 in a matter of days.

Dogecoin saw an immense rise in value in early 2021. It began the year priced at less than one penny per coin, and then ticked up significantly starting in late January as part of the wider meme stock trading frenzy. DOGE popped to a then-peak of about $0.08 per coin in early February before the price started to dwindle.

But DOGE’s value multiplied several times further in April and May, ultimately reaching an all-time high above $0.73 on May 8. That peak wouldn’t hold, however.

As the wider crypto market entered an early summer free fall, DOGE dropped hard with occasional upward swings, but never came close to recapturing its top. According to CoinGecko, DOGE hasn’t been above $0.30 since early September. As of this writing, Dogecoin’s price has fallen 81% since marking its all-time high.

DOGE was created as a joke in 2013, but gained serious value in 2021 as millions of new investors flooded into cryptocurrency. It found prominent fans in Mark Cuban and Elon Musk, the latter of which has a propensity to pump DOGE’s price with his tweets. It also boosted Robinhood’s crypto business, although the company warned of the risk of relying on such a volatile coin.

Whether Dogecoin can regain its early 2021 momentum and reach the fabled $1.00 milestone remains to be seen—but right now, it has fallen far from its peak. Today’s wider market crash has only exacerbated the coin’s gradual decline in recent months.

As for Shiba Inu, the Ethereum-based meme token that emerged as DOGE’s main rival last year—and even briefly surpassed Dogecoin in market cap—it’s down a larger 16% at a current price of $0.00002273. SHIB hit a three-month low today, per data from CoinGecko, and is now down 74% from its late October all-time high of $0.00008616.

Cryptocurrency Prices Today: Bitcoin falls 7%, Ethereum sheds 9%

The global cryptocurrency market capitalisation dropped from $1.88 to $ 1.7 trillion during the last 24 hours while the trading volume surged from $66.35 to $126 billion.

The decentralised finance (DeFi) cryptocurrency market cap surged 123.14 percent to $120.97 billion. Value of stablecoins stood at $115 billion, representing nearly seven percent of the market. Stablecoins are tied to an asset - such as the dollar or any other fiat currency or gold - to stabilise their price.

Bitcoin's market dominance remained nearly flat at 40.51 percent and the asset was trading at $36,579 levels today morning.

In rupee terms, Bitcoin fell over seven percent to trade at Rs 29,63,463, while Ethereum fell nine percent to Rs 2,11,277.4.

Meanwhile, Robinhood Markets Inc is rolling out crypto wallets to a 1,000 users, allowing them to send and receive cryptocurrencies through their brokerage accounts, the company said in a blog post. The Menlo Park-based online brokerage had laid out plans to begin testing the wallets last year, with the aim of a broader rollout in 2022.

El Salvador buys its cheapest 410 Bitcoin as prices reach $36K

President Nayib Bukele confirmed that the purchase of 410 BTC was made against $15 million, placing the trading price at approximately $36,585 per BTC

The Central American country of El Salvador has added 410 Bitcoin (BTC) to its central reserve as BTC prices trade below $37,000, a price last seen on July 26th, 2021. 

The fresh addition to El Salvador’s BTC reserve was announced by President Nayib Bukele, who confirmed that the purchase of 410 BTC was made against $15 million, placing the price at approximately $36,585 per BTC.

El Salvador adopted BTC as a legal tender on Sept. 7, 2021, as a means to overcome catastrophic inflation amid the weakening spending power of the nation. Fast forward to today, the country has strategically accumulated 1,801 BTC over the past four months, especially when the market sees a momentary price fall.

The latest purchase is currently the cheapest acquisition for El Salvador ever since the country adopted BTC as a legal tender.

With BTC trading just above the $36,000 mark and the resultant sell-off, Bukele believes that “some guys are selling really cheap,” supporting his long-term vision of mainstream Bitcoin adoption.

As evidenced above by data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, BTC experienced a steady rise in prices from mid-July, which resulted in an all-time high of almost $69k in the first week of November. However, the next three months saw a steep decline in market prices as investors redirected BTC profits into buying other tokens.

SkyBridge Joins the SEC’s List of Rejected Spot Bitcoin ETFs

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has, once again, rejected a spot bitcoin ETF application. It was filed earlier by the investment management company First Trust Advisors and the hedge fund SkyBridge led by Anthony Scaramucci.

• In a statement published on Thursday (January 20, 2022), the SEC said the reason for the rejection was that they failed to meet the requirements.
• According to an excerpt from the SEC document:

“Because NYSE Arca has not demonstrated that its proposed rule change is designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices, the Commission must disapprove the proposal.”

• Back in March 2021, SkyBridge partnered with First Trust to file a Bitcoin ETF application with the SEC. On May 25, the Commission began an official review of the ETF proposal.
• Later in July, the SEC first postponed its decision on the application till August 25, with another delay happening in November 2021.

A statement from the SEC document said:

document said:

“The Commission further concludes that NYSE Arca has not established that it has a comprehensive surveillance-sharing agreement with a regulated market of significant size related to bitcoin.”

• Meanwhile, the SEC’s latest rejection is not surprising, given that the agency is yet to greenlight a spot Bitcoin ETF product. In December, the securities watchdog disapproved an application by Valkyrie and Kryptoin. NYDIG’s proposal has been delayed until March 16, 2022.
• However, the SEC seems to show a preference for ETFs that track bitcoin futures. ProShares made history as the company with the first approved futures-backed Bitcoin ETF in the United States. Others have come from VanEck and Valkyrie.

Russian Banks Begin Testing Digital Ruble Payments

Banks in Russia are preparing to dive into the pilot phase of the digital ruble project and some are already testing transactions with the currency. Trials have started with customer-to-customer (C2C) payments and Bank of Russia plans to expand the types of operations in the future.

Digital Ruble Pilot Launches With 12 Participating Banks

The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) completed the prototype of the digital ruble platform in December and is now beginning to experiment with transactions. A dozen banks have been invited to join the first stage of the project’s pilot phase. The monetary authority plans to gradually expand the range of participants to include other financial service providers and types of transactions.

Right now, the majority of Russian banks are gearing up to start testing the new central bank digital currency (CBDC), Tass reported after contacting the institutions. One of them, Promsvyazbank (PSB), is currently processing C2C payments, Maxim Khrustalev, advisor to the deputy chairman of the bank told the news agency.

After the customer-to-customer transactions, “the technical testing of C2B, B2C and B2B payments will begin. Based on the results of the piloting, Bank of Russia will start to introduce the digital ruble platform into commercial operation,” Khrustalev added.

Tinkoff Bank is also joining the efforts to trial the new, digital form of Russian fiat. “Tinkoff is preparing to pilot the digital ruble in the near future,” according to a statement from the online neobank. Tinkoff recently entered the crypto space by acquiring a controlling stake in the Swiss-registered fintech startup Aximetria.

Another major Russian bank, VTB, said its infrastructure is ready to pilot the digital ruble. “Piloting includes integration with the digital ruble platform and the introduction of services such as opening a wallet through a mobile application and digital ruble transfers between individuals,” the bank’s press office detailed.

According to Vitaly Kopysov, chief innovation officer at SKB-Bank, the digital ruble will become a driver for the development of new national payment services for both citizens and companies. Speaking with Tass, he elaborated:

The digital ruble will give an additional impetus to the creation of offline cashless payment services for businesses in the absence of Internet access at a point of sale, which is very important given the geography of the Russian Federation.

Russia’s central bank has maintained a hardline stance on cryptocurrencies and recently proposed a wide-ranging ban on crypto-related activities. It began contemplating a digital ruble three years ago and decided to explore options to issue the CBDC in 2020, when it published a consultation paper on the matter. In April 2021, the bank released a digital ruble concept outlining its principal architecture.

Other banks taking part in the first stage of the pilot are Ak Bars, Alfa-Bank, Dom.rf Bank, Gazprombank, Rosbank, Sberbank, Bank Soyuz, and Transcapitalbank. The Federal Treasury, along with financial intermediaries, will join at the second stage when transactions between private individuals and corporate entities will be carried out, including consumer-to-business (С2B), business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-government (B2G) transactions

Do you think Russia will be able to successfully launch a digital ruble? Share your expectations in the comments section below.