Bitcoin fell along with Ether and all other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies in Tuesday morning trading in Asia, wiping out most of Monday’s gains. Cryptocurrencies followed the decline in U.S. equity markets overnight as traders looked to be taking profits ahead of this week’s Federal Reserve meeting on rates and a raft of technology earnings. Solana led the losers. Dogecoin pared its losses on reports Twitter Inc. boss Elon Musk is looking to add payment systems to the social media platform and he is a known fan of the token.
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Fast facts
- Bitcoin fell 3.9% at US$22,836 in the 24 hours to 8 a.m. in Hong Kong, bringing its losses to 0.6% in the past seven days. Ether fell 4.8% to US$1,566 on Tuesday morning, and is down 3.8% for the week, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
- Solana lost 8.1% to change hands at US$23.91, a drop of 1.8% over the week after the token saw the biggest gains in CoinMarketCap’s top 10 list on Monday.
- Cardano dropped 6.3% to US$0.37, a loss of 1% for the seven days. Polygon fell 7.5% to US$1.09, however, was still trading up 9% since last Tuesday.
- Leading memecoin Dogecoin fell 1.5% to US$0.08, keeping its losses to 1% for the week. On Monday the Financial Times reported Musk, the world’s second-richest person, is exploring adding payment systems to Twitter that may include crypto. Musk is a long-time advocate for Dogecoin.
- U.S. equities fell Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.8% and the S&P 500 Index lost 1.3%. The Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 2% for its worst day of trading in five weeks.
- The Fed is meeting Jan. 31 – Feb. 1 and is expected to raise interest rates by a smaller 25-basis points, breaking the streak of 50 or 75 basis point hikes since last March in an attempt to slow the pace of inflation. The rate decision is expected Wednesday.
- The Fed’s aggressive rate increases last year seem to be having the desired effect on inflation. In December, the U.S. consumer price index rose 6.5% year-over-year, which was well off the 7.1% recorded in November and the largest monthly decline since April 2020.
- Investors are also preparing for earnings announcements from technology leaders this week, including Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., and Alphabet Inc., the parent company of search engine Google. Non-farm payroll data is also out on Friday, another key inflation indicator.
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