Bitcoin and Ether rose on Wednesday trade in Asia, along with all top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies, with Solana and Cardano leading the way. Asian equity markets traded mixed, while U.S. stock futures were down amid renewed banking sector concerns.
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Fast facts
- Bitcoin rose 4.05% to US$28,383 in 24 hours to 4:00 p.m. in Hong Kong but is still down 5.62% on the week, according to CoinMarketCap data.
- “The funding rate for Bitcoin has now turned negative, meaning shorts are paying to keep their position open. That spells extra pain the further Bitcoin moves up, making a short squeeze more likely,” crypto data platform Decentrader tweeted. A short squeeze occurs when an asset’s price rises, resulting in the liquidation of short positions.
- Ether, the world’s second-biggest cryptocurrency, climbed 2.48% to US$1,862 but is down 10.14% on the week.
- Solana’s SOL was the day’s biggest gainer, rising 4.91% to US$21.92, bringing its weekly losses to 10.04%. Cardano’s ADA was the second-highest gainer among the top 10 cryptos, climbing 4.46% to US$0.3967, while posting weekly losses of 8.70%.
- Global crypto market capitalization gained 2.94% to US$1.18 trillion, while total crypto market volume rose 12.26% to US$40.64 billion in the last 24 hours.
- The Forkast 500 NFT index slid 0.17% to 3,730.08 points on the day and fell 8.33% on the week. The index is a proxy measure of the performance of the global NFT market and includes 500 eligible smart contracts on a given day. It is managed by CryptoSlam, a sister company of Forkast.News under the Forkast Labs umbrella.
- Asian equity markets were mixed on Wednesday. The Shanghai Composite lost 0.02%, while the Shenzhen Component Index rose 0.33%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gained 0.71% while Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 0.71%.
- “Investors should brace for significant volatility in global financial markets over the next few weeks. We could see a 10% correction,” said Nigel Green, chief executive of financial advisory firm deVere Group, in a statement.
- Equity markets reacted to renewed concerns about the wider impact of the recent banking crisis, as U.S. regional bank First Republic revealed that deposits shrank by 41% to US$104.5 billion in the first quarter, causing its shares to drop 45.4% on Tuesday.
- European bourses traded in the red on Wednesday, as the benchmark STOXX 600 fell 0.69% and Germany’s DAX 40 weakened 0.55%. Investors are looking at a slew of corporate earnings from major European firms like Danone, Roche, Puma, Orange, Safran and Beiersdorf.
- U.S. stock futures showed mixed results on Wednesday with a 0.42% rise in the S&P 500 Futures, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 1.02% and 1.98%, respectively.
- The U.S. dollar index dropped 0.48% to 101.3 points as concerns about the banking system resurfaced. Meanwhile, the euro gained ground, rising 0.67% to US$1.10.
- Gold inched up 0.04% to around US$1,998 per ounce.
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