In February the value of the two biggest crypto-currencies Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) continued going up – BTC had an increase of 4.4% and ETH value increased by 5.8%. The value of the third biggest crypto-currency – Build-and-Build (BNB) remained unchanged, though a slight drop of 0.3% was observed regardless, according to Binance representative in Latvia Polina Brotjē.
BTC value increased from EUR 21 116 at the beginning of February to EUR 22 064 at the end of the month.
This means the total value of BTC has increased by 40% since the start of the year. However, it remains 65% below its all-time peak.
What is particularly interesting is that at the moment there is the smallest number of so-called Bitcoin whales (who own more than 1 000 BTC) observed in the last three years. According to available information, there are slightly more than 1 600 addresses with this number of BTC. The number of such «whales» was at its peak a year ago, when more than 2 100 addresses had at least 1 000 BTC on them.
Attention towards Bitcoin blockchain increased thanks to BTC NFT equivalent – Ordinals.
By the end of February there had been more than 210 000 Ordinals formed in the BTC blockchain. This NFT functionality was formed in the blockchain thanks to system updates performed a the end of 2021.
Right now there is a rapid climb of interest and many Ethereum network NFT collections, such as Bored Apes, have switched to BTC blockchain. The rapid rise of popularity for Ordinals helped increase the popularity of BTC blockchain. However, it has yet to affect the BTC price.
The price of ETH grew over the course of the month by nearly 6% and was EUR 1 536 by the end of February. In March Ethereum plans to perform a system update. This will help bring 17 million ETH, which users had previously donated in exchange for interest, back to the system.
The update will ensure the switch of Ethereum to an energy efficient algorithm. This can negatively affect ETH price if a large volume of ETH is released to free trade at the same time.
BNB experienced very slight changes in February – the peak price of this crypto-currency was EUR 311 and the lowest was EUR 266.
Generally the crypto market is currently relatively calm. There are currently no notable or unexpected novelties that could affect the price in any meaningful way. Analysts’ predictions about the future of this market are somewhat controversial – some believe another drop will come before growth, others are more optimistic and expect continued growth of the crypto-currency market.
