Bitcoin, Ether Dive While Some Alternative Cryptocurrencies Hit Record Highs

Ether, the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, is poised to log its first weekly loss since the end of March, as its price, along with that of larger sibling bitcoin, are in the red on Saturday.

At press time, ether was changing hands at $3,779.81, down 8.48% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk 20. Meanwhile bitcoin, the No. 1 cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has also fallen, down 5.88% in the past 24 hours to below $48,000.

After a six-week-long winning streak, ether is set to end the week on a down note, according to data from TradingView and Kraken.

As for bitcoin, the balance of that cryptocurrency held on major exchanges is increasing again after dropping for more than a year, according to data from Glassnode. Some analysts interpreted that as a bearish sign for the market. as it could show more BTC is available to sell on exchanges.

Meanwhile, the winners of the day appear to be tokens of so-called Ethereum Killers and layer 2 scaling projects, as some of those tokens have logged new all-time highs on Saturday.

The price of scaling solution Polygon Network’s native token, MATIC, was up by more than 22% in the past 24 hours, according to data from Messari. Its price logged a record high on Saturday at around $1.87.

Year to date, MATIC has also chalked a 100-fold rise with its market capitalization soaring to more than $8.96 billion.

Meanwhile, the prices of tokens for smart contract platforms such as Cardano (ADA) and Cosmos (ATOM) were also rising. At the time of writing, ADA was up 18.30% in the past 24 hours to $2.25, and ATOM was up 5.39% to about $26.47.

The network congestion on Ethereum blockchain has increased demand for Ethereum alternatives as well as for layer 2 scaling projects like Polygon, which has sent their tokens' prices skyrocketing.