While bitcoin prices were affected during the first quarter of 2022, it still managed to close between $36,000 and $45,000 spectrum for the quarter, as per a CoinGecko report. According to the data from the report, bitcoin price yielded a 1.6% return for the quarter. It showed that bitcoin had hit a yearly low price of $35,180, before reaching the price level of $36,000.
Data from the report stated that bitcoin prices remained stagnant, compared to gold and oil prices which projected gains towards the end of the quarter. It was accredited to the Russia-Ukraine war, which made investors look for investments in digital commodities.
The report insights showed factors such as the Russia-Ukraine crisis caused bitcoin to slump, El Salvador postponed their bitcoin bonds sale, MicroStrategy applied for a loan to fund their bitcoin purchase, LFG Foundation was formed to purchase for backing Terra USD and Federal Reserve announced rate hikes, which in turn affected the cryptocurrency market for the first quarter of 2022.
The report further stated that bitcoin’s total hash value, which refers to the computational power of transactions by the proof-of-work mechanism, experienced volatility between 160m total hash rate per second (TH/s) and 220m TH/s, and reached an all time high of 248m TH/s on February 12, 2022. The overall hash rate decreased by 3.5% reaching 200m TH/s, compared to being higher than the price range in December 2021. The second largest bitcoin mining country Kazakhstan faced a countrywide blackout in January 2022 while increasing its miner tax by 10 times. Kosovo and Georgia stopped cryptocurrency mining for tackling energy crises, while the European Union decided to not prohibit bitcoin mining.
Asset classes such as S&P500, NASDAQ, DXY and TLT sustained losses for the first quarter of 2022. Projections from the report showed a revival in bitcoin prices because of the way USA equities were deployed and managed.
(With insights from the CoinGecko report, 2022)
