Bitcoin and Ether dropped in Tuesday afternoon trade in Asia, along with all other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Binance’s native token BNB led the day’s decline across the top 10 cryptos.
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Fast facts
- Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, dropped 0.47% to US$21,778 in 24 hours to 4 p.m. on Tuesday in Hong Kong, after losing 4.98% in the last seven days. Ethereum prices declined 1.13% to US$1,505, down 7.78% on the week, according to CoinMarketCap data.
- BNB, the native token of world’s largest crypto exchange Binance, fell the most significantly across the top 10 cryptos. It decreased 4.17% to US$293.71, after posting a weekly loss of 10.69%.
- Polygon’s Matic token lost 2.86% to US$1.18, and has declined 3% on the week. Memecoin Dogecoin dropped 2.59% in 24 hours to US$0.0818 after losing 10% in the past seven days.
- Asian equity markets were mixed on Tuesday as investors await the U.S. consumer price index report later in the day. Economists expect annual inflation in the world’s largest economy to slow to 6.2% in January.
- The U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to increase interest rates by another 25 basis points at its meeting next month. U.S. central bank officials have said interest rates could rise as high as 5%, from the current 4.5% to 4.75%.
- “While rate expectations are now more realistic and we expect interest rate volatility to stabilize, we expect liquidity to remain tight in the next few months,” said Johanna Kyrklund, group chief investment officer of Schroders.
- Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slipped 0.24% on Tuesday and the Shenzhen Component Index dropped 0.15%, while the Shanghai Composite climbed 0.28%.
- Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.64% and the yen strengthened after the formal nomination of Kazuo Ueda as the next Bank of Japan governor.
- India’s Sensex index at the Bombay Stock Exchange gained 1.07% at 2.47 p.m. local time. India’s retail inflation increased to a three-month high of 6.52% in January compared to 5.72% in December 2022. The Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank, has projected an average inflation rate of 5.3% for 2023-2024.
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