The crypto markets have been nothing if dramatic this week, but Bitcoin enjoyed a 6.5% rally on Friday morning to bring its exchange price to a two-week high of US$20,500.
Gains were still being added at the time of writing though for what it’s worth, Bitcoin’s dominance against the broader crypto markets still seems to be falling.
Ethereum is also at a two-week high of US$1,700 after adding around 4% this morning, with continuing bullish action observed at the time of writing.
As a result, the crypto markets shot through the US$1tn barrier.
All large-cap network tokens including Cardano, Solana, Polkadot and Polygon added between 5% and 10% of their respective market capitalisations.
Terra Classic (LUNC) remains the top performer over the past seven days having almost doubled its market cap to over US$3bn, although this morning saw a 2% reversal.
Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) network Chainlink and highly scalable blockchain solution Cosmos (ATOM) were also strong risers this week.
On the flipside, fan-engagement token Chiliz and centralised finance platform Nexo were the biggest losers, having encountered double-digit losses.
In the decentralised finance (DeFi) space, total value locked across all protocols has remained essentially flat over the past week, and currently stands at US$59.5bn.
In the news
Anonymous shillers have wasted no time following the passing of Queen Elizabeth II at age 96 after her 70-year reign.
A flurry of Queen-related meme tokens and NFTs have flooded the market under names such as QueenDoge and Queen Elizabeth Inu.
The tasteless trend primarily took place on the Binance-based decentralised exchange PancakeSwap, a popular medium for unregulated crypto trading.
The US government with help from crypto analytics firm Chainalysis has recovered up to $30 million stolen from play-to-earn game Axie Infinity earlier this year.
Erin Plante, senior director of investigations at Chainalysis said in a blog post: “With the help of law enforcement and leading organizations in the cryptocurrency industry, more than $30mln worth of cryptocurrency stolen by North Korean-linked hackers has been seized.
“This marks the first time ever that cryptocurrency stolen by a North Korean hacking group has been seized, and we’re confident it won’t be the last.”