Crypto markets continue to show little change this Friday after losing value last night and most of this week. The global cryptocurrency market cap remains at $920 billion, up 1.94% in the past 24 hours. Bitcoin is trading at $19k, and Ethereum managed to rise back above the $1,300 support. Let’s look at relevant news affecting prices today.

Key Points:

• This Friday, the cryptocurrency market remains relatively unchanged as Bitcoin and Ethereum prices continue to trade sideways.
• Some analysts suggest that the bear market is ending and may only last another 2-3 months.
• Many projects are taking the opportunity of declining volatility to continue to innovate and focus on preparing themselves for the next bull run.
• It seems the theme for crypto assets is environmentally friendly action, such as Bitcoin’s SBC protocol and Ethereum’s merge.

Crypto Market Update

Despite the declining trading volume and overall bearish sentiment, Bitcoin continues to hold the $19k support level, signaling exceptionally strong resistance to volatility. A report by Cointelegraph suggests that Bitcoin’s bear market will last 2-3 months max, after which we’re likely to see recovery efforts.

Some on-chain metrics hint at Bitcoin bottoming out, but until we see several weeks of bullish momentum, it’s impossible to call the bottom for BTC.

While a bear market means losses for investors, the downtrend provides projects with time and breathing room to innovate and prepare for the bull market. We’re seeing some projects focus on creating a climate-positive protocol for Bitcoin. Ethereum’s merge is a step in the right direction when turning blockchain and crypto assets into environmentally friendly technologies.

In addition, Ethereum is becoming a deflationary asset, according to a Coindesk report, which means that over the long term (months-years), we could see significant price growth for Eth when compared to other crypto assets.

While Ethereum has been slacking the past couple of weeks, today, ETH outperformed BTC in terms of price action. Ethereum could still overtake Bitcoin in terms of market cap next year, making it the highest-valued crypto asset on the market.

With Ethereum’s current market cap of $160 billion, if ETH doubled in price to $2,600, it would be extremely close to Bitcoin’s market capitalization of $370 billion. While unlikely, such a price increase for Ethereum isn’t out of the question.

Today’s trading volume for crypto assets remains relatively unchanged, with Bitcoin’s volume down 2% while Ethereum’s volume is up 8%. The current market capitalization for cryptocurrencies is $923 billion, still below the $1 trillion range signaling a bearish sentiment.

While the lack of bullish price action may seem like a bearish sign, it’s important to note that cryptocurrencies are also exhibiting much less volatility than earlier this year. Lower volatility is a positive sign that the market is stabilizing and could be bottoming out.

Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any services.

Follow us on Twitter @themerklehash to stay updated with the latest Crypto, NFT, AI, Cybersecurity, and Metaverse news!