Bitcoin inched up and Ether slipped in Tuesday afternoon trading in Asia, with most other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies trading lower on the day. China reported a higher-than-expected gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 3% in 2022.

See related article: What does the future hold for digital assets in 2023?

Fast facts

  • Bitcoin gained 0.04% to US$21,129 in the past 24 hours to 4 p.m. in Hong Kong, a 22.8% rise over the past calendar week, according to CoinMarketCap data. Ether lost 0.17% to US$1,563, in a weekly gain of 18.14%.
  • Bitcoin and Ether prices have risen along with the crypto market since the U.S. released December’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) of a 6.5% growth on an annual basis. It marked the smallest annual increase since October 2021, possibly pointing to subsiding inflation.
  • All cryptocurrencies on the top 10 list declined on Tuesday, except for Polkadot that rose by 0.6% to US$6.01 and gained 22.86% in the past week. 
  • Solana lost 3.57% to US$23.41 but was the biggest gainer of the week with an increase of 46.73%, following the surge of interest in Bonk, a Solana-focused memecoin.
  • Asia equity markets were mixed on Tuesday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index closed 0.78% lower, and the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.1%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 went up by 1.23%.
  • China’s GDP grew by 3% in 2022, its National Bureau of Statistics announced on Tuesday. While it fared better than the 2.8% forecast in a poll from Reuters, it failed to hit  target growth of 5.5%. 

See related article: China’s digital yuan needs WeChat, Alipay to boost adoption, experts say