Major cryptocurrencies gained on Monday after witnessing a fall in the past week.

Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalisation, rose nearly 1 percent. According to CoinDesk data, Bitcoin was down 19 percent in the past seven days, the worst weekly performance since May 2021 when China cracked down on cryptocurrency trading and mining.

Bitcoin was trading at 35,303.26 at 9:18 am (IST), according to CoinDesk data.

Bitcoin dropped again on Saturday and was last down nearly 4 percent for the day, hovering around the $35,000 level.

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Ethereum, another major crypto, surged over 2 percent in the past 24 hours and was trading at 2459.88, up 1.65 percent at 9:22 am. Ether dropped 6.7 percent to $2,396 on Saturday.

Meme crypto Dogecoin fell over 6 percent, Shiba Inu tumbled close to 4 percent and Solana was down over 16 percent. Other cryptos - Litcoin, Cardano and Stellar - gained.

Bitcoin has had wild price swings and has been hit in the past week as risk appetite has fallen on inflation fears and anticipation of a more aggressive pace of interest rate hikes from the US Federal Reserve.

Other risk assets have fallen with stocks falling on Friday. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq recorded their biggest weekly percentage drops since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.

In a research note on Friday, Edward Moya, senior market analyst for the Americas at OANDA, said bitcoin was falling as "crypto traders de-risk portfolios following the bloodbath in stocks" and in advance of next week's Federal Reserve policy meeting.

"Bitcoin remains in the danger zone and if $37,000 breaks, there is not much support until the $30,000 level," Reuters quoted Moya as writing on Friday.

-With agency inputs

(Edited by : Bivekananda Biswas)

First Published:Jan 24, 2022 9:44 AM IST