Bitcoin (BTC) followed an upward trend after the Halving, rising nearly 3% against the US dollar on Monday, though it experienced a slight retreat of about 1.1% this morning.
As of this writing, Bitcoin was trading at $66,064, marking a 4% increase week-on-week.
“The Halving is a significant milestone for the network,” commented Matteo Greco, a research analyst at Canada-listed fintech group Fineqia International.
Post-Halving, the network witnessed a decrease in hash rate, which measures the computational power used for the security layer of the Bitcoin network.
However, Greco observed that “a short-term drop in hash rate is typical as miners recalibrate their operations. We anticipate the hash rate will recover as miners improve their efficiency and as competition grows fiercer.”
Following the halving, Greco pointed out a “stagnant demand” for Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) last week, which could be impacting spot prices.
“ETFs backed by BTC saw about $205 million in outflows over the week, extending a slightly negative trend from the prior week,” he explained. “This is the first time we’ve seen back-to-back weeks of net outflows since BTC ETFs were introduced.”
Despite this, the overall demand since the inception of these ETFs remains strong, with approximately $12.3 billion in net inflows and a total trading volume of $226 billion, averaging about $3.2 billion daily.
Ethereum (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, has increased by 2.8% week-on-week, trading at $3,165 in early Tuesday sessions.
In the wider altcoin market, BNB, Ripple (XRP), and Cardano (ADA) have all seen double-digit percentage increases over the last week.
The global cryptocurrency market capitalization currently stands at $2.43 trillion, with Bitcoin accounting for 53.6% of that total.
