Bitcoin and Ether fell during Friday afternoon trading in Hong Kong, along with most other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Bitcoin and Ether both remained below key support levels, as investor sentiment failed to pick up even after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accepted eight spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) applications for review.
See related article: Weekly Market Wrap: Bitcoin rises past US$31,000, cryptos rally after Ripple’s win against U.S. SEC
Bitcoin, Ether fall below key levels, top 10 cryptos mixed
Bitcoin was little changed during afternoon trading in Asia, changing hands at US$29,806 as of 4:30 p.m. in Hong Kong after it fell below the US$30,000 mark yesterday.
Ether inched down 0.21% during afternoon trading in Asia to US$1,891, and declined 5.47% during the past week.
The SEC has accepted eight ETF applications for review after they were published in the Federal Register on Wednesday. But this failed to bolster risk appetite among crypto investors.
“The SEC has now acknowledged the ETF applications from BlackRock, VanEck, Invesco, Fidelity, WisdomTree, and Bitwise,” wrote crypto intelligence firm K33 Research, in a note shared with Forkast.
Dogecoin was the day’s biggest gainer, rising 3.81% in the past 24 hours to US$0.07168, followed by Polygon’s Matic token that strengthened 2.64% to US$0.7634.
Solana’s Sol token was the biggest loser in the top 10, falling 3.45% to US$25.27.
The total crypto market capitalization over the past 24 hours fell 0.31% to US$1.2 trillion while market volume increased 11.26% to US$35.97 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data.
Bitcoin drops to 7th largest network by NFT sales volume, Ethereum NFT sales fall for third day
The Forkast 500 NFT index fell 0.31% to 2,691.90 points in the 24 hours to 4:30 p.m. in Hong Kong and gained 0.43% during the week.
Bitcoin’s 24-hour non-fungible token sales continued to decline, dropping 48.02% to US$550,090, as sales for Uncategorized Ordinals fell 49.66% to US$235,720. This lowered Bitcoin from the second to the seventh largest network by 24-hour NFT sales volume, according to CryptoSlam.
Ethereum’s 24-hour NFT sales fell for a third consecutive day, declining 3.22% to US$12.79 million, while sales for the largest Ethereum-native NFT collection, the Bored Ape Yacht Club, rose 2.34% to US$1.4 million.
CryptoPunks also continued its decline, falling 12.33% to US$622,411. The Opepen collection also continued to fall, with 24-hour sales decreasing 43.71% to US$90,520.
The Forkast SOL NFT Composite and the Forkast CAR NFT Composite were also in the red for the day.
Asian equities fall, U.S. stock futures rise on positive earnings reports
Most major Asian equities fell as of 4:30 p.m. in Hong Kong. Japan’s Nikkei 225, the Shanghai Composite, and the Shenzhen Component all posted declines. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose for the first time in four trading sessions.
Investors are looking forward to China’s Politburo meeting, which is anticipated to set the policy for the second half of the year, amid hopes that the Chinese government will offer more substantial economic stimulus.
U.S. stock futures rose during Friday afternoon trading in Hong Kong, bolstered by positive earnings results from Johnson & Johnson and Goldman Sachs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average futures, the S&P 500 futures index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 futures all posted gains.
On the corporate front, Tesla and Netflix shares tumbled following weak quarterly earnings reports. Investors now look ahead to earnings from American Express Company, Schlumberger and Roper Technologies.
Risk appetite remained subdued ahead of the Federal Reserve’s next meeting on monetary policy on July 26. The CME FedWatch Tool predicts a 99.8% chance the Fed will raise interest rates by 25 basis points at the next meeting. U.S. interest rates are now at 5% to 5.25%, the highest since 2006.
See related article: Standard Chartered’s great expectations for Bitcoin in 2024
Updates with equities section
