Bitcoin slightly higher, gives up earlier gains

The world’s largest crypto in the previous session ended March with a nearly 2% gain, snapping a five-month losing streak underscored by heavy losses

Bitcoin was slightly higher on Wednesday, giving up earlier gains but remaining largely above the flat line as risk assets continued to get a boost from Middle East de-escalation hopes.

The world’s largest crypto in the previous session ended March with a nearly 2% gain, snapping a five-month losing streak underscored by heavy losses.

Bitcoin added 0.3% to $68,478.6 by 21:26 GMT.

Energy-driven inflation, stemming from the Iran war, was a major point of concern for markets through March, amid concerns that some central banks will turn policy hawkish.

Such a scenario bodes poorly for speculative assets such as crypto.

Elsewhere, Google researchers said in a recent white paper that crypto could be more vulnerable to breakthroughs in quantum computing than initially thought.

They said quantum computing may break elliptic curve cryptography, a type of cryptography that Bitcoin is based on.

Google quantum researchers demonstrated that breaking the elliptic curve may take less than 500,000 physical qubits on a superconducting quantum computer, nearly 20 times fewer qubits than initially estimated.

While the technology to run such computing does not practically exist today, Google researchers warned that such computers could exist by 2029. They also urged the crypto industry to consider transitioning blockchains to post-quantum cryptography.

The research cited contributions from Coinbase, the Stanford Institute for Blockchain Research, and the Ethereum Foundation.

Broader crypto prices largely rose on hopes of an end to the war in the Middle East.

Second-largest crypto Ether added 2.7% to $2,159.79, while XRP gained 1.1% to $1.3550.

Solana was marginally higher, while Cardano jumped 3.6%. BNB slid 0.4%.