Litecoin and Ripple make their moves, Shiba Inu whale rises as wider crypto market flattens

The crypto market stayed stagnant over the weekend, with Bitcoin (BTC) settling down to around $26,000 following the aftershocks of one of this year's largest liquidation events, which saw the value of the world's largest cryptocurrency by market cap drop 11% last week. The remainder of the crypto market also saw little movement, with the exception of a notable pair of altcoins.

Ripple (XRP) dropped 4%, while Litecoin (LTC) recovered 2% after taking losses last week, making waves in an otherwise flat market.

SHIB slips after shaky Shibarium launch

Shiba Inu (SHIB) had its tail between its legs this week as the meme coin slid 2% following the problematic launch of its Ethereum layer-2 network Shibarium. The network, which was slated to be a significant step in the evolution of SHIB from an ironic joke to a serious utility token, went live last Wednesday. Unfortunately, the network's deployment was plagued by issues resulting from faulty coding, including a bug that locked over $1.7 million worth of tokens in a 'bridge' state between two blockchains. Investors were unimpressed at the botched rollout, and SHIB's price dropped by over 20% in the past week.

Can SHIB recover from the negative impact of Shibarium's technical issues? The canine coin still has its diehard believers. On-chain analysts managed to detect a movement of 4.65 trillion SHIB tokens, the equivalent of about $38.39 million, to an unidentified wallet on Monday, suggesting that at least one SHIB whale is ready to make waves, and more may follow.

Bitcoin at a discount?

While bulls will be disappointed at Bitcoin's recent fortunes, others looking to enter the market are seeing opportunities to buy Bitcoin on the cheap before volatility returns to buoy the price up again, especially with the next Bitcoin halving event scheduled for 2024. Investors are continuing to purchase the original cryptocurrency, and retail traders have the opportunity to either short BTC if they anticipate another drop or join in the accumulation and bank BTC for the future.

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