Bitcoin and altcoins were on a wild ride earlier after the latest United States Consumer Price Index (CPI) data came in at 7.5% – the highest level it’s been in 40 years.

Bitcoin (BTC), which many see as a potential inflation-hedge asset, actually initially plummeted about US$1,800 on the news, before quickly spiking back up.

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap up about 1.7% over the past 24 hours, here’s the state of play in the top 10 by market cap right now – according to CoinGecko data.

Source: CoinGecko.com

In the midst of Bitcoin’s moment of weakness, US trader and analyst Scott Melker, aka the “Wolf of All Streets,” put the dump down to fears about the US Federal Reserve’s likely inflation-combatting rate hikes in March.

 

But the dip was extremely short lived. Maybe Fed rate-hike fears and reactions are now… “priced in”? That’s a pretty big maybe, of course.

Nevertheless, the original, orange-coloured crypto rebounded in a sharp, V-shaped recovery to a daily high shortly after. At the time of writing, it’s hanging around at that higher level – about US$45,450.

Volatile, much? Bitcoin’s 24-hour price action. (Source: CoinGecko.com)

And, just for comparative fun, here’s the latest US Dollar Index chart. The BTC/DXY inverse correlation continues.

Source: MarketWatch.com

 

Winners and losers: 11–100

Sweeping a market-cap range of about US$22.8 billion to about US$1 billion in the rest of the top 100, let’s find some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time.

DAILY PUMPERS

• Smooth Love Potion (SLP), (market cap: US$1.28b) +32%

• Theta Network (THETA), (mc: US$4b) +20%

• Secret (SCRT), (mc: US$1.17b) +10%

• Celsius Network (CEL), (mc: US$1.48b) +7%

• Neo (NEO), (mc: US$1.78b) +6.5%

 

DAILY SLUMPERS 

• Arweave (AR), (market cap: US$1.86b) -6%

• Radix (XRD), (mc: US$1.96b) -5.5%

• Celo (CELO), (mc: US$1.35b) -4.5%

• Leo Token (LEO), (mc: US$6b) -4%

• Iota (IOTA), (mc: US$1.35b) -4%

 

Lower-cap winners and losers

Moving below the crypto unicorns (in some cases well below), here’s just a selection catching our eye…

DAILY PUMPERS

Pirate Chain (ARRR), (market cap: US$270m) +39%

Ribbon Finance (RBN), (mc: US$112m) +38%

Ellipsis (EPS), (mc: US$153m) +34%

• QI DAO (QI), (mc: US$62m) +30%

Bonfida (FIDA), (mc: US$163m) +21%

 

DAILY SLUMPERS

• EverRise (RISE), (market cap: US$81m) -20%

Tomb Shares (TSHARE), (mc: US$312m) -17%

• Crypterium (CRPT), (mc: US$23m) -16%

• Smart Valor (VALOR), (mc: US$24m) -15%

Kuma Inu (KUMA), (mc: US$19m) -14%

 

Final words

Gary Vaynerchuk – a US entrepreneur, investor, NFT project creator and social-media personality (the guy wears a lot of hats) – gave some good answers to crypto-sceptic questioning from CNBC Middle East today.

In response to the host’s proposed notion that the crypto space is “an avenue for money laundering” a hang-out for white supremacists and is “problematic at best in so many ways”, Vaynerchuk countered:

“I don’t think the crypto space has any more problematic issues than the internet, society at large, mainstream media, Wall Street… I think it’s a new avenue of innovation.

“Every avenue of innovation has good characters and bad characters,” he continued. “I look at it as a new platform where consumers and humans will evolve, and all the good and bad that comes with human behaviour will play out on the platforms.”