Bitcoin and Ether prices rose in Tuesday afternoon trade in Asia, while all other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies were mixed. XRP led gains at 2.37%, while Solana and Polygon dropped saw the largest declines. Bitcoin returned to the US$25,000 price level a day after it became the 11th largest asset in the world, surpassing payments giant Visa’s market cap.
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Fast facts
- Bitcoin (BTC) gained 1.97% to US$25,002 in 24 hours to 4 p.m. in Hong Kong, and has gained 14.79% on the week. Ether inched up 0.46% to US$1,704, gaining 13.2% over the last seven days, according to CoinMarketCap data.
- “BTC repeated its March 2020 downside wicking depth below the 200-day MA (moving average),” wrote pseudonymous crypto analyst Rekt Capital, adding that Bitcoin will rally once it reclaims the 200-day MA as support, which is around US$25,000.
- XRP rose the most, gaining 2.37% to US$0.3998, and strengthened 7.85% on the week. Ripple Labs, which developed the Ripple payment network powered by XRP, said on Monday it is hiring engineers and has about 75 open positions.
- Solana dropped the most among top 10 non-stablecoin cryptos, by 1.78% to US$26, but gained 23.84% in the last seven days. Polygon’s Matic fell 1.46% to US$1.47, but strengthened 24.54% on the week.
- Asian markets were mixed on Tuesday. The Shenzhen Component Index gained 0.12% while the Shanghai Composite strengthened by 0.49%.
- “While the current macroeconomic environment may cast a shadow over global exports, and the Fed may still continue with its rate hikes, China’s domestic demand remains robust,” Jack Lee, China A-shares fund manager of Schroders, said.
- Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropped 1.71% at Tuesday’s close while Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 0.21%.
- European shares declined in anticipation of Eurozone manufacturing and services activity data and the ZEW economic sentiment index. Germany’s DAX 40 retreated 0.2% while Stoxx 600 fell 0.3%.
- Investors are anticipating the minutes of the meeting of U.S. Federal Reserve, which would shed light on the direction of the economy and interest rates. The central bank has been consistently increasing interest rates since last year and is expected to raise rates by 25 basis points next month. Currently, interest rates in the world’s largest economy stand at 4.5% to 4.75%, and Fed officials had earlier said that may increase to as high as 5%.
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