Bitcoin continued to rally this week – and pushed meme coins while it was there.
According to CoinGecko, the largest cryptocurrency by market value is currently trading at $44,021 per coin. Over the past 24 hours, that's an increase of less than 1 percent. During the week, however, it increased by 13.4 percent.
Experts told Decrypt that the rally is largely due to the recent approval of what appears to be a long-awaited Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) product.
Some analysts say this could lead to a flood of capital into crypto markets as traditional investors gain exposure to digital assets.
As usual, the rise of Bitcoin has led to the rise of altcoins. But this week's winners were the same as last week's – meme coins.
Digital coins and tokens based on internet memes and jokes continue to rise in value before dying again. Pepe, Dogecoin and Shiba Inu were all winners this week.
Now they've slowed their rally: Pepe is down about 2%—but still up more than 40% this week.
And Dogecoin, the 10th largest digital asset, is trading at $0.10, a 3% increase in 24 hours. Within seven days, over 20% profit was achieved.
Shiba Inu jumped 21 percent last week, up more than 2 percent.
One meme coin, however, continues to circulate: the Solana-based bonk. The dog-themed meme coin is now at $0.0000128—a 7-day increase of 188%, and up 635% over the past 30 days.
Renewed enthusiasm around Solana, the ban behind SOL, has led to increased investment in projects on the network.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
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