Bitcoin is beginning to assert its dominance over all other cryptocurrency coins.

In 2021, thousands of new altcoin competitors attacked the original digital coin – from solana to polkadot and litecoin to dogecoin and dogecoin. This raised the possibility of rapid fragmentation in the crypto market.

Bitcoin has managed to stem its market share loss this month and is now gaining ground as investors panic and seek the relative safety and security of the largest crypto player, while they battle an aggressive Fed and talk about war in Europe.

According to CoinMarketCap data, Bitcoin’s share in the $1.68 trillion crypto-market has increased to 42% from 39% just two weeks ago. This is the first time that it has seen an increase since falling from 46% in mid October.

Market participants caution it is too early to declare a trend and point out that although bitcoin has outperformed other crypto markets, the whole market has dropped this month. Some believe 13-year old bitcoin may continue to gain from the more cautious investment environment.

Matthew Dibb (chief operating officer at Stack Funds, a crypto fund distributor based in Singapore) stated that if risk-off continues, bitcoin will sucking up liquidity in crypto markets.

Although most cryptocurrencies still use bitcoin as their price cues, some fund managers anticipate a gradual divergence or decoupling this year. This will require more discrimination.

According to Jeff Dorman, chief investor at digital asset management company Arca, ‘While some casual market observers were able print a pretty good satoshi (bitcoin investments) last year by simply watching their favourite assets rise, 2022 will likely require a more cautious, nuanced and active strategy.

“Pockets are a source of strength that will occasionally emerge. Keeping a few of these shifts in your repertoire will make a huge difference to your performance for the year.

SOLANA: A CANARY IN THE COAL MINE?

The year has started with a rocky start for cryptocurrency investors, who ran from the risk. However, bitcoin’s January 20% drop to $37,000 is the lowest among top coins.

The main challenger, ether, the cryptocurrency on the Ethereum blockchain is down 34%.

Even more cryptocurrencies that are linked to blockchains to create decentralised finance apps have lost ground. Solana, which rose 100 times in 2021, is now down 47% and polkadot, 41%.

However, the December selloff has been less volatile than bitcoin’s May 2021 rout. It saw lower volume transactions and a halving of bitcoin’s value in just nine days.

“A range between $30,000 to $40,000 for a few days or even months would be not surprising me,” said Michal Cymbalisty from Chicago, cofounder of the decentralised exchange Domination Finance. He also stated that concerns about a long “crypto winter” were exaggerated.

Analysts see solana, given its rapid rise in 2021 and recent outages, as the “canary in the coalmine”.

JPMorgan analysts often refer to solana as the ‘ethereum killer’. They cite its use of non-fungible tokens, NFTs, to explain why it has gained market share at the expense of ether. BofA analysts say it ‘could be the Visa for the digital asset ecosystem.

According to CoinGecko, Solana’s market capitalisation is more than $28 billion. This makes it the seventh-largest cryptocurrency in the world.

Stack Funds’ Dibb said that Solana is a speculative crypto asset. If it rises, there will be more demand for altcoins.

He also warned of a significant decline in investor risk appetite that could lead to the demise of some cryptocurrencies.

“If there’s another risk-off wave we could see Nasdaq drop another 5.5% and cryptos could be crushed. As yet, cryptos are not an asset store of value.

Looksrare is a new Ethereum-based NFT marketplace. It has overtaken Opensea in volume during the last 24 hours. Opensea, with its $14.68 billion total sales, is undoubtedly the largest NFT marketplace. NFT marketplace Looksrare hasn’t sold billions of dollars and is still relatively new.

However, 24-hour statistics show that Looksrare’s daily and hourly volumes have surpassed Opensea sales on January 12, 2022. Looksrare’s sales of $385.39 Million among 3,241 traders is less than Opensea’s 59.500 traders on Wednesday. Opensea’s 24 hour volume was $109.78million in sales on Wednesday morning at 7:00 AM (EST).

Although the marketplace is still new, buzzing on social networks after Opensea beat the daily trade volume of the market has made the name popular. The tragedy of complacency. Like Mex in its glory days, Opensea likely succumbed in the face of inertia.

Dune Analytics also allows users to create charts that highlight the volume between NFT platforms. One user created a ” Looksrare” set of charts which analyzes the daily and hourly volumes between NFT markets. To analyze Looksrare’s sales, other Dune Analytics users have created visual charts.

Looksrare is experiencing a surge of popularity because it is giving away LOOK tokens for anyone who has spent at least three ether on Opensea. There are some tokens that have been airdropped but not officially associated to Opensea users. However, the largest NFT marketplace does NOT have an official native token.

Dappradar.com’s NFT market data shows that Looksrare has an average sale of $108K per unit at the time this article was written. Other top NFT markets include Mobox with $1.29million in sales and Solana’s Magic Eden, which has $9.48m in sales. Mobox experienced an 87.08% increase in volume, while Looksrare saw the largest 24-hour percentage gains.

It is estimated that the electricity used to mine Bitcoin each year is eight times greater than the combined use of technology companies Google and Facebook. This raises concerns about the potential environmental impacts of digital currency.

According to Data provider TradingPlatforms, the world’s largest cryptocurrency consumes 143 terawatt hours of power each year. This is more than many European countries with medium size. To put this in perspective, global data centers consume approximately 205TWh annually; Bitcoin consumes 70% of that figure.

Google, owned by Alphabet, is the world’s largest search engine. It uses 12TWh which is approximately a 12th of Bitcoins energy consumption. Meta Plaftorms Facebook, the largest social network in the world, uses only 5TWh to perform its functions, which is 3.5 percent of what Bitcoin requires.

Norway and Switzerland only need 124TWh (or 56TWh) respectively.

Edith Reads, a TradingPlatforms author, stated that statistics paint a grim picture of the Earth.

“The energy Bitcoin uses is alarming. Its transactions consume more energy than whole countries at the moment. This is due to the asset’s increasing mining difficulty, which requires more power to execute.

There has been a lot of attention paid to the environmental impacts of Bitcoin and the entire cryptocurrency market.

According to Money Supermarket’s study, Bitcoin is the most energy-hungry cryptocurrency. A single transaction requires an average of 1,173 Kilowatt-hours. It was found that the average UK household’s electricity consumption is 350kWh per month, which is sufficient to power a typical UK home for three months.

This would be equivalent to approximately six weeks of electricity, based on an average US household electricity use of 877kWh per year.

Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency in the world, requires only 87.29kWh per transaction, which is just 7.4% of what Bitcoin needs. Money Supermarket stated that Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin require only 19kWh each, while the rest of us don’t even need 1kWh.

Cambridge University researchers discovered that Bitcoin’s annual energy consumption was higher than that of the UAE. They logged in 120 TWh per annum, compared to the UAE’s 119.45TWh.

Bloomberg also reported in the same month that the Nordic region was losing its edge for green Bitcoin mining. This comes at a time when investors’ appetite for cryptocurrency has grown and the industry is being scrutinized more closely for carbon emissions.

The cryptocurrency fell below $30,000 for first time since January, when China, the largest power consumer in the world, shut down Bitcoin mining operations in Sichuan in June to address environmental concerns.

Ms. Reads stated that Bitcoin’s bad reputation is mainly due to its technology. It uses a proof-of-work consensus mechanism for validating transactions. This requires a lot of energy and hardware, and releases a lot of waste into our environment.

“Additionally, a large portion of the country’s mining activity is dependent on non-renewable energies. These resources are cheap and attractive for many miners. She said that coal and other fossil fuels have a large carbon footprint.

According to Brussels-based EnerGuide, the power consumption of a computer depends on its type. The average desktop consumes 200 watts per hour when it is in use, including speakers and printers. It consumes almost 600KWh per year and emits 175 kg of carbon dioxide if it is left on for more than eight hours per day.

Laptops, however, use between 50 and 100 watts per hour when they are turned on. It consumes between 150kWh to 300kWh per day and emits between 44kg to 88kg of CO2 annually if it is turned on for 8 hours. Standby mode reduces the power consumption of both a laptop and a desktop by around a third.

Non-fungible tokens, which are cryptocurrency assets that use Blockchain to track the ownership status digital objects, add to cryptocurrencies’ carbon footprint. Every step in the NFT cycle is dependent on energy. Money Supermarket estimates that an average NFT consumes 340kWh and has 241kg of carbon footprint.

The latest cryptocurrency market craze still consumes significantly less energy than its counterparts, but it still uses more electricity at 0.3TWh than 28 countries. It is just behind Antigua & Barbuda.

The Bitcoin community has not been silent about the criticism, its supporters pointing out that digital assets leave a larger footprint than other mundane activities, as Ms Reads stated.

Despite pressure from regulators and environmentalists, some of the largest banks in the world – which includes JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America , Morgan Stanley , Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs – have committed to reducing their carbon footprint.

The cryptocurrency industry is also striving to be cleaner and more environmentally friendly. Part of this shift involves the adoption renewable energy for validating transactions. These include solar, wind, and geothermal power.

According to a report by the Global Carbon Project, the world will emit 36.4 gigatonnes carbon dioxide in 2021. This is close to 2019 levels. At the recent Cop26 summit, world leaders worked together to tackle the problem.

According to CoinMarketCap data, Bitcoin’s price was $46,412.75 as of Thursday morning. This is almost 3% less than the previous 24 hours. The market capitalization of the entire cryptocurrency sector was more than $2.17 trillion.

In an interview with Yahoo Finance Live on Friday, Flori Marquez (Blockfi’s cofounder and senior vice-president of operations) discussed the future outlook for cryptocurrency as it enters 2022.

Blockfi was founded in 2017 to offer credit services to markets that have limited access to basic financial products. Funding from institutional investors includes Valar Ventures and Galaxy Digital, Fidelity Capital, Akuna Capital Capital, Sofi and Coinbase Ventures.

She began, “It’s been an incredible year for crypto,” she said. Although she acknowledged that bitcoin’s price has fallen slightly, she said it was still a huge year for crypto. Comparing that to S&P and gold, it’s negative 4% and 24% respectively. It has fluctuated in the past 30 days, so it is volatile year-over-year. It’s still a great investment, even if you’re not as active as you were a year ago. According to the executive:

This year was a big year for crypto mainstream consumers.

She said that there have been huge shifts in American consumer interest in this asset class.

She spoke out about the future outlook of the cryptocurrency market in 2022.

According to the executive, “Looking forward to 2022, I believe that we’re going see three things,” he elaborated:

First, we will see more Americans enter the space. FOMO [fear and obsession with missing out] will be a major driver.

“So, we’re entering the holiday season. People will be talking about all the new investments they made this year. She stated that she believes crypto is now more accessible to average consumers than it was five-years ago.

Second, she believes that we will see the’recycling talent’ as a result of the Covid-19 epidemic, which has seen a lot more people switching jobs. She also stated that people are attracted to the fintech and crypto fields.

She believes that we will see regulatory clarity in the crypto industry next year.

In 2022, I believe we will see some regulatory clarity. It’s taken a lot of effort to work with regulators and understand what is needed to ensure that this sector continues to grow. That’s what I hope to see next year.

She continued, “My understanding is that regulators are currently focusing on two things,” she said. “They are focusing on consumer protection and innovation in the U.S.,” she said.

According to the executive, ‘Regulatory clarity will allow many crypto companies to build with greater clarity. This will hopefully make it safer for consumers over time. It will also facilitate mainstream adoption by making it easier for consumers to feel safe knowing that regulators are involved in the space.

The crypto meme token market economy, valued at $47.2 million at the time of writing, has suffered a severe hit from yesterday’s market chaos. Dogecoin (DOGE) has the largest market cap at $21.5 billion. Each DOGE trades for $0.164, or 0.00000342 Bitcoin per unit. DOGE has fallen 37.7% in the past month but dogecoin has risen 4,863% over the same period. Sunday, December 5th, there was $1.4 billion in global DOGE trades. Binance is the most active dogecoin trading platform.

The stablecoin tether ( USDT), commands the majority of dogecoin’s trades today. USDT captures 75.79% Sunday’s DOGE pairs. The USD (10.69%) is followed by BUSD (5.03%), Bitcoin (3.96%) and EUR (2.05%). This weekend, 1.2% of all DOGE pairs are held by the Turkish lira (TRY).

Binance is not the only active dogecoin exchange on Sunday. Huobi Pro and Okex are also available. Bittrex and Kraken are also available. The Block stats show only 55% DOGE holders making money at the current price. Today’s concentration of large holders is 60%. In the past seven days, there were $20.33 billion in transactions worth more than $100K in DOGEcoin.

Shiba Inu Drops 9% This Week, 59% Below the Crypto Asset’s All Time High

Shiba Inu (SHIB), is the second-largest cryptocurrency meme asset. This week, SHIB has lost much more than DOGE. SHIB has fallen 9.7% and 27.6% in the last 30 days. However, year-to-date gains are quite different as SHIB has risen a staggering 56,175,642%.

SHIB remains at 59.5% below the crypto asset’s record $0.0000861616 on October 28. SHIB, which has a market capital of $19.6 billion, is currently the 13th largest cryptocurrency asset. Global SHIB trade volume is currently $2.3 billion at the time of writing.

Similar to DOGE’s trading platform, Binance is SHIB’s most popular exchange on Sunday. Volumes from Huobi Pro and Okex are closely following Binance’s SHIB market. With 41.9% of all SHIB trading pairs, Tether ( USDT) ranks as the top trading pair. The USD (23.51%), BUSD (19.63%) and TRY (9.88%) follow.

58% of SHIB owners are still in profit, and 78% of large holders are currently in profit. According to Into the Block statistics, transactions exceeding $100K in the past seven days have generated approximately $4.93 billion of SHIB.

Kitty Coin, Meta Doge and Donkey See Double-Digit 7 Day Gains, Catbonk, and Fantom Doe Reduce Significant Losses

DOGE and SHIB have lost some value over the past week. Many other meme tokens also experienced losses. Dogelon mars (ELON), which lost 19.3%, and baby doge coin(BABYDOGE), dropped by 21.3% over the past week.

However, meta doge (METADOGE), donkey (DONK) and kitty coins (KITTY have all seen double-digit gains in the past seven days. Catbonk (CABO), which lost 67%, and fantom doge (RIP) who shed 59% were the biggest meme token losers this week.