Bitcoin and Ethereum rose, along with nearly all other top 10 cryptocurrencies, in Thursday afternoon trading in Asia after the U.S. reported slower inflation in July and as Ethereum completed a test run for its upcoming shift to the proof-of-stake (PoS) model.
See related article: Markets: Bitcoin, Ether rise with equities as US inflation shows signs of slowing
Fast facts
- Bitcoin gained 6.31% in the last 24 hours to change hands at US$24,470 as of 4:30 p.m. in Hong Kong, while Ethereum rose 11.4% to US$1,883, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
- Solana was the biggest mover among CoinMarketCap’s top 10 coins by market cap, gaining 11.66% to flip hands at US$44.42.
- Asia equity markets, except Japan, mostly closed in the black. The Hong Kong Hang Seng index rose 2.4%, the Shanghai Composite index edged up 1.6% while the Nikkei 225 slipped by 0.65%.
- The Consumer Price Index released on Wednesday showed that U.S. inflation in July rose by 8.5% on the year, lower than 9.1% in June.
- The overall gains in crypto markets also come amid reports that Ethereum has completed a Goerli testnet merge, which was widely regarded as a final test run ahead of the highly-anticipated mainnet “Merge” expected on Sept. 19.
- Crypto exchange Binance on Wednesday voiced support for the PoS merge. Issuers of Tether and USDC, two of the largest stablecoins, said earlier this week that they will also support Ethereum’s upcoming PoS chain.
See related article: Binance to support Ethereum’s PoS Merge, evaluate new forked tokens