Bitcoin and Ethereum ease slightly as crypto’s low volatility continues

The continued lack of consumer confidence was once again reinforced by the minuscule price movements across the cryptocurrency space.

Bitcoin retreated 0.4% to US$20,238 on Thursday morning but was ever-so-slightly outpaced in its decline by its biggest rival by market capitalisation, Ethereum, which eased 0.5% to US$1,368.

There is hardly any appetite for risk amongst investors, especially for unsafe assets like crypto, largely due to the economic downturn and recession fears.

Low market volatility, which has been a theme in recent weeks, was still apparent on Thursday, with none of the 25 most popular coins moving by more than one percentage point.

Ninety-six of the leading 100 coins were changing hands in negative territory, but for the vast majority, the dips were negligent in the long-term picture.

XRP and NEAR Protocol were the only fallers of the so-called ‘top 30’ to give up more than one percentage point, edging 1.1% and 1.2% lower respectively.

The biggest ‘loser’ of Thursday’s early morning trade was Lido DAO, which changed hands 1.5% lower.

For the largest price change of the ‘top 100,’ 1.5% is a very insignificant movement compared with historic trends, which often produce double-digit alterations each day.

Bucking the trend, BitTorrent-New advanced the most but this was still by a mere 0.1% as it aims to break into the ‘top 50’.

Both the leading cryptos were more than 70% below their all-time highs seen in the ‘crypto summer’ of the latter months of 2021.

Some digital asset investors had attempted to gain momentum for cryptos this month, brandishing it ‘Uptober’ but it seems as if that was short-lived.