Bitcoin, Ether fall amid interest rate hike fears, Silvergate liquidation; Forkast NFT 500 index slips 0.79%

Bitcoin and Ether fell in evening trading in Asia on Thursday, with XRP the sole gainer over 24 hours among the top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. The global crypto market cap dropped 1.51% to US$992.83 billion a day after U.S. crypto bank Silvergate said it would voluntarily liquidate. The new Forkast NFT 500 index slipped, and Asian equity markets were mixed.

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Fast facts

• Bitcoin fell 1.71% to US$21,650 in 24 hours as of 6:00 p.m. in Hong Kong on Thursday, according to CoinMarketCap data. The biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is down 7.65% on the week. Ether fell 1.45% to US$1,532 after losing 6.85% in the past seven days. 
• XRP remained a market outlier and the day’s biggest gainer among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap. The token was also the third biggest gainer among all tokens, increasing 3.2% to US$0.39 and up 4.16% on the week.
• Altcoin Kava outperformed the broader market with a gain of over 6%, while Toncoin strengthened over 3.35%.
• The global cryptocurrency market capitalization fell further, below the US$1 trillion benchmark, to US$992.83 billion. Total crypto market volume fell 5.1% to US$44.20 billion in the last 24 hours. 
• In his second day of congressional testimony, U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell reiterated his message that interest rates might need to rise more than previously estimated but also added that the March rate hike has not been set and remains data-dependent. The U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) has risen nearly 3.5% since Feb. 1.
• Asian stocks were mostly flat, following similar results in the U.S. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index saw the biggest loss of 0.63%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.63%. The Shanghai Composite in China slipped 0.22%.
• Markets in Europe trended lower on the day. England’s FTSE MIB dropped 1.19% and the STOXX 600 slid 0.57%. 
• The Forkast NFT 500 index dropped 0.79% to 4,241.17 over the last 24 hours as of 6:00 p.m. on Thursday in Hong Kong. The Forkast NFT 500 Index is a proxy measure of the performance of the global NFT market and includes 500 eligible smart contracts on any given day.
• (Corrects market capitalization to ‘trillion’ in bullet point four.)

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