The cryptocurrency market is trading down in general, with Bitcoin and Ethereum down 2.2% and 6.1% over the past 24 hours in Tuesday evening trade in Hong Kong.

See related article: ETH crosses Bitcoin in options market for first time in history

Fast facts

  • Bitcoin was trading at US$22,843.99, while Ethereum was changing hands at US$1,586.29 at 4:30 pm HKT.
  • Ethereum exceeded Bitcoin in Deribit’s options market for the first time, with reports attributing the surge to Ethereum’s upcoming merge of current proof-of-work blockchain with proof-of-stake Beacon Chain blockchain.
  • “This could be a residual effect of the earlier kind of liquidation on all the contagion parties and then a lot of large players buying up their long spot,” Igneus Terrenus, head of communications at Bybit, told Forkast in an interview. Terrenus added that the news of “the Merge” also played a part in the options rally. 
  • Outside of crypto, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index closed down 2.4% with the Nikkei and Shanghai Composite indexes ending 1.4% and 2.3% lower.
  • All of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization were trading lower over the past 24 hours at 4:30 p.m. HKT on Tuesday according to CoinMarketCap
  • Nevertheless, the top 20 cryptocurrencies with the exception of LEO are trading higher in a seven-day timeframe. 

See related article: Prominent Chinese ETH miner plans proof-of-work fork amid The Merge