Cryptos hold tight as traders eye Ukraine developments

Bitcoin was down 0.26% to $47,487 and Ethereum shed 0.29% to $3,401

Bitcoin and Ethereum were down slightly as traders cautiously welcomed a promise from Russia to ‘drastically reduce’ military operations in Kyiv and Chernihiv following peace talks.

The largest coin by market cap was down 0.26% to $47,487 ending a streak of 14 days of consecutive gains.

Ethereum also fell slightly, shedding 0.29% to $3,401, just off from its own three-month high.

Yesterday a Russian official vowed Moscow will scale back some of its military activities in Ukraine following further peace talks in Istanbul.

Downing Street said there has been some reduction in the bombardment of the Ukrainian capital, while US officials have reported seeing some Russian troops leave the city.

According to Naeem Aslam, a market analyst at AvaTrade, ‘the crypto king is still hesitating to break the most crucial level of $50,000.’

If the Bitcoin price breaks this price point, it will be almost certain that the bull run will push the price towards the $60,000 price mark, the next significant resistance point, he said.

He added most of Ethereum’s movement seems to be ‘driven due to the hype in non-fungible tokens and institutional traders bagging Ethereum as they know that other Ethereum killers aren’t likely to have the same market penetration.’

An ‘Ethereum killer’, refers to other cryptos, such as LUNA and Solana, that have evolved as a blockchain and can mitigate the flaws of the initial system, in this case, Ethereum.

Aslam pointed to the fact that NFT transactions on the Ethereum blockchain are still ‘mammoth’ compared to LUNA and Solana as a sign the killers are still relatively small.

In some of the altcoins, LUNA was up 1.82% to $106.42, Solana was up 1.44% to $111.63 and Cardano fell 2.29% to $1.19.