Cryptocurrency market mayhem: Prices of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu tank in last 24 hours

The cryptocurrency market tumbled by 1.6 per cent in the last 24 hours as the market capitalisation of the global market cap on Friday stood at $2.32 trillion. Almost all major cryptocurrencies witnessed a drop with Bitcoin registering a 4.2 per cent fall in the last 24 hours to trade at $47,041 per unit till the last update. Another major digital currency, Ethereum saw a 2.3 per cent dip in the last 24 hours and was trading at $3931 per unit.

The other cryptocurrencies witnessing a drop on the CoinGecko platform included Dogecoin (-3.8 per cent), Shiba Inu (-4.5 per cent), Binance (-1.3 per cent), Tether (-0.3 per cent), Cardano (-4.7 per cent).

The cryptocurrency market crash comes amid revelations by blockchain data platform Chainalysis which claimed that scams involving cryptocurrency went up by 81 per cent in 2021 when compared to the year before. It was also brought to light that rug pulls, where cryptocurrency developers launch new tokens only to abandon them unexpectedly after taking users' funds with them, was the most common type of scam.

The research firm summed up that over $7.7 billion worth of cryptocurrency was robbed of victims worldwide. Of this, rug pulls alone accounted for more than $2.8 billion (around Rs 21.3 crore) worth of cryptocurrency swindling.

With speculation rising over cryptocurrency safeguards, International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Gita Gopinath, who on Thursday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was recently quoted as saying that rather than banning cryptocurrencies, governments would be well-advised to evolve a 'global framework' to regulate the fast-evolving space.