The cryptocurrency market eroded its gains on Thursday to trade lower following rate hike signals by the Fed at its next meeting. The central bank would steadily remove support for the economy in order to fight high inflation.

Barring the US dollar-pegged stable coins, all other eight out of the top-10 digital tokens were trading lower during the trade on Thursday. Bitcoin and Ethereum shed more than 2 per cent each, whereas Terra dropped 7 per cent.

The global crypto market cap dropped more than 2 per cent to the $1.62 trillion mark. However, the total crypto market volume rose more than 22 per cent to $103.97 billion.

Indian cryptocurrency exchanges have recorded higher trading volumes in the past few days owing to extreme volatility in the market.

Many traders and investors liquidated some of the riskier tokens, rebalanced their portfolios by moving to stable coins and also indulged in opportunistic buying to average down their portfolios.

The ballooning popularity of Bitcoin and other digital currencies has given rise to a strange new political breed: the crypto mayor. Eric Adams, New York’s new mayor, accepted his first paycheck in Bitcoin and another cryptocurrency, Ether.