Bitcoin and Ether rose as all top 10 tokens by market capitalization, excluding stablecoins, gained in Tuesday morning trading in Asia. Polygon led the list. Solana followed on news a leading non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace will suspend transaction fees.
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Fast facts
- Bitcoin gained 1.5% in the past 24 hours to trade at US$19,550 as of 8 a.m. in Hong Kong, while Ether rose 1.9%% to US$1,331, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
- Polygon was the biggest gainer on the top 10 list, jumping 6% to US$0.84. Solana was the next biggest gainer with a 3.5% move to US$31.22. This follows news that Magic Eden, the largest NFT marketplace in the Solana blockchain, was making payment of royalty fees on the network optional and suspending transaction fees.
- U.S. equities closed higher on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.9%, and the S&P 500 Index rose 2.7%. The Nasdaq Composite Index finished the day up 3.4% to record its biggest single-day gain since July.
- Markets were buoyed on Monday by the U.K.’s new finance minister, Jeremy Hunt, abandoning much of his predecessor’s mini-budget. The pound jumped more than 2% on the back of the news to trade at US$1.14. The mini-budget in late September had proposed £45 billion (US$51 billion) in unfunded tax cuts, which in the weeks since had driven the pound to its lowest level against the U.S. dollar since the mid-1980s.
- Markets also rallied on a better-than-expected earnings report on Monday from Bank of America Corp. on the back of higher income from the rise in interest rates. The shares jumped more than 6%.
- Earnings season for financial firms is in focus on Wall Street and the next major release is due from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on Tuesday.
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