Bitcoin slowed down on Wednesday after two days of active strengthening, and on Thursday morning, it rolled back to 43.1K, losing 2.2% in the last 24 hours. Ethereum is down 3.3% 0.6% in the same period. Leading altcoins from the top ten lose from 1% (Terra, XRP) to more than 5% (Avalanche).
The total capitalization of the crypto market, according to CoinMarketCap, decreased by 2.5% to $1.09 trillion. The Bitcoin Dominance Index is hovering around 43.1%. The Cryptocurrency Fear and Greed Index fell 13 points to 29, ending in the fear zone.
From the technical analysis perspective, Bitcoin slowed down ahead of strong mid-February resistance at 45K, which then turned the move down. The first cryptocurrency in recent days has not paid too much attention to stock indices, which rose on Wednesday. The technical picture continues to point to a break in the downtrend, although to confirm the reversal, the rate must first fix above 45K.
Bitcoin trading volumes have increased markedly in the last week due to the events in Ukraine. On Feb. 28, immediately after the Bank of Russia asset freeze, BTC jumped by 11%, showing the highest growth in many months. Due to new sanctions, the Russians withdrew depreciating ruble assets and invested them in cryptocurrencies.
In the EU, it was previously discussed that since Bitcoin and Ethereum use the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism, which consumes a lot of electricity and harms the environment, it's time to ban the mining of these cryptocurrencies. However, it was decided to abandon this idea following the new version of the bill on digital assets.