Bitcoin fell in a mixed morning of trading for the top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization on Thursday in Asia. XRP posted the biggest gains in the list while Solana led losses. The U.S. Federal Reserve released its February meeting minutes on Wednesday, hinting at further interest rate hikes.
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Fast facts
- Bitcoin fell 1.0% in the last 24 hours to trade at US$24,190 as of 8 a.m. in Hong Kong, after falling to as low as US$23,644 overnight. The world’s leading cryptocurrency was trading down 0.5% over the past week, according to CoinMarketCap. Ethereum fell 0.9% to US$1,643, dropping 1.8% over the past seven days.
- XRP rose 0.9% to US$0.39, though the token was still trading down 1.4% for the past seven days. FTX Japan, the Japanese arm of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX.com, reinstated XRP withdrawals overnight.
- Solana dropped 3.1% to trade at US$24.2, while rising 1.2% in the past seven days. Solana Spaces, a startup funded by Solana Foundation that promotes its namesake blockchain with its physical stores in New York and Miami, announced on Tuesday it will shut down its locations by the end of the month.
- Toncoin, the 26th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, rose 5.5% to US$42.47, bringing its weekly gains to 5.6%. The Open Network, a blockchain powered by Toncoin, released a governance platform on Tuesday that allows Toncoin validators to vote on decisions in the network.
- The total crypto market capitalization dropped 1.5% to US$1.08 trillion at 8 a.m. in Hong Kong. The total trading volume over the past 24 hours was down by 4.9% to US$63 billion.
- U.S. equities had a mixed day of trading on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3% and the S&P 500 Index slipped 0.2% while the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.1%.
- Investors reacted with trepidation to the release of the Fed’s meeting minutes on Wednesday, which showed that the central bank recognized that inflation was cooling in the economy, but said labor markets “remained very tight, contributing to continuing upward pressures on wages and prices.“
- The minutes also revealed that there were some members of the Fed that were pushing for a 50 basis point rise in interest rates at the Fed’s previous meeting, when the central bank instead announced a 25 basis point rate hike to a targeted range of 4.5%-4.75%, the highest level since October 2007.
- Analysts at the CME Group predict a roughly 75% chance that the Fed will raise rates by another 25 basis points next month.
- The latest Consumer Price Index data showed inflation was up 6.4% in January from a year ago, down from 6.5% in December and 7.1% in November. The Fed has indicates it is trying to bring inflation down to a target range of 2%.
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