Having long lagged behind bitcoin ( BTC ) in terms of price action, ether ( ETH ) saw some solid gains on Wednesday, rising 8% to over $3,880 in the last 24 hours.
The second largest cryptocurrency’s price benefitted from $800 million worth of shorts closing their positions, according to Tom Dunleavy, a partner at venture studio Master Global. But it’s also profiting from a capital influx reminiscent of the 2021 bull market, CoinDesk Senior Analyst James Van Straten pointed out.
Bitcoin’s dominance peaked on Nov. 21 at 61.85% and has since slumped to 54.84%, Van Straten noted. Solana’s dominance has also tanked. “BTC has stayed flat, so ETH is playing catch up,” Van Straten said.
That also explains why so many coins in the CoinDesk 20 — an index of the top 20 cryptocurrencies, excluding stablecoins, memecoins, and exchange coins — are performing so well. While the index itself is only up 1.83% today (weighed down by bitcoin’s lackluster 1.52% gain), Ethereum Classic ( ETC ), Filecoin ( IOU ), Polkadot ( DOT ) and Uniswap ( UNI ) have surged 22%, 18%, 17% and 16% respectively over the past 24 hours.
Bitcoin did not strongly react to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s comments at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit. Powell only briefly touched on inflation, stating that the U.S. central bank can afford to act cautiously in its search for fiscal neutrality, before CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin asked him whether bitcoin’s rise was due to investor fears about the fate of the U.S. dollar.
“People use bitcoin as a speculative asset,” Powell said. “It’s like gold, only it’s virtual, it’s digital. People aren’t using it as a form of payment or as a store of value. It’s highly volatile. It’s not a competitor for the dollar, it’s really a competitor for gold.”
Powell further stated that when it came to the integration of crypto in the financial system, the priority was to safeguard the health and stability of the banking system, alongside consumer protection.
