After a slight rebound to intraday highs at $42,237 , Bitcoin fell to new lows of 40,505 on January 8, following further declines. Bitcoin will mark the 7th consecutive day of selling pressure without any respite.
Altcoin markets are feeling the downward pressure. Nearly all of the top 100 tokens were trading in red at press-time. According to CoinMarketCap data, stablecoins and assets like Internet Computer (ICP), Dash, (+1.56%), Gnosis, (GNO),+ 8.94%) were trading green at press time.
The year 2022 began on a mixed price action note. With the wide-based market selloff in the first week 2022, Bitcoin defies the “first weeks of the year effect” . Many assets ignore the market action and fail to achieve new milestones in adoption and network growth.
Bitcoin was traded at $40,701 as of press time.
Cardano, VeChain, Shiba Inu Record Network Growth
Cardano (ADA)
The 2022 event schedule will see Cardano firstly move into Basho, then into Voltaire. Basho is a phase that focuses on optimization, scaling and network growth. Charles Hoskinson CEO of IOHK, says that over 175 projects are currently being built on Cardano. A dozen more projects are expected to launch in Q1.
These numbers could increase by hundreds of thousand, with new Cardano users expected to arrive in the next months. This could result in significant traffic to the Cardano network, especially during the initial days and weeks of the launch of new decentralized apps (DApps).
Cardano has begun to adjust its network parameters to accommodate the growing demand. Cardano released the Cardano Node 1.33.0 on January 7. This performance-focused release brings significant improvements in sync times, block propagation and memory usage.
IOHK, Cardano’s parent company, revealed this in a series of tweets. “We have some exciting month ahead. FUD is also expected. We will continue to provide regular updates through early 2022, as we add capacity and increase secure throughput em>
ADA trades at $1.14 as of press time
VeChain (VET).
VeChain Foundation launched 2022 with a major announcement about its newly launched stablecoin VEUSD. It reads:
VeUSD, VeChainThor’s first native StableCoin will soon be live. Enterprises and users will be able create and burn fully-backed USD-based stablecoins easily, which opens VeChain up for DeFi, web3, as well as other real-world uses.
The foundation also stated “With global aims, ambitions, launching the stablecoin token at dawn 2022 aligns to our projected ‘Growth Phase’.”
In order to make it easier for users to access USD minting and redemption functions, there are plans to integrate the widget directly into VeChainThor’s wallet in Q1 2022.
It also reveals plans to launch a VeChain Hackathon in the coming weeks, to encourage and spur the development and use of VeChainThor functions and tools. Prizes will be paid in USD.
VeChain trades at $0.073 as of press time
Shiba Inu (SHIB)
According to WhaleStats, Shiba Inu continues to expand its network. The current total number of holders stands at 1,127.703, SHIB continues to burn its token at an increasing rate. Shibburn says that 410,300,000.742,108.254 SHIB were burned from the initial 1 quadrillion.
Bigger Entertainment, a crypto record label, has reported that it has burned 1 BILLION SHIB in total since launching its burn campaigns three months ago.
SHIB trades are at $0.000027 as of press time
