Bitcoin and Ether rose during Asian trading hours on Thursday, along with all top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Asian equities were down, in line with Wall Street’s performance, after the minutes of the latest U.S. Federal Reserve meeting showed a willingness to tame inflation with more interest rate hikes.
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Fast facts
- Bitcoin rose 1.7% to US$24,435 in the 24 hours to 4:30 p.m. in Hong Kong. Ether gained 1.93% to change hands at US$1,669, according to CoinMarketCap data.
- The rest of the top 10 cryptos also rallied on the day, with the Shiba Inu token posting the biggest gains, up 5.13% to US$$0.00001339, followed by Polygon’s Matic that rose 4.42% to change hands at US$1.40.
- The global cryptocurrency market capitalization decreased by 2.12% to US$1.11 trillion in the 24 hours to 4:30 p.m. in Hong Kong, with total crypto market trading volume down by 13.18% to US$59.81 billion.
- Asian equities were down on Thursday, in line with Wall Street’s overnight downtrend, reflecting caution from investors after the minutes of the Fed’s last meeting showed that policymakers largely agreed to raise more interest rates to rein in inflation.
- The Shanghai Composite slid 0.11% and the Shenzhen Component Index lost 0.13%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 0.35% to near a seven-week low and Japan’s Nikkei 225 ended the day 1.34% lower.
- European stock recovered on Thursday after two days in the red, as the Stoxx 600 rose 0.3% and the DAX 40 inched up 0.4%. Tech stocks were lifted by a stronger-than-expected corporate earnings report from graphics card maker Nvidia, which saw higher earnings from the use of its chips in artificial intelligence chatbots and other applications.
- Britain’s Rolls-Royce rallied 18% following higher-than-expected profit growth statistics, fueled by global post-pandemic recovery and an increase in international travel.
- Austria’s January inflation increased on the year to 11.2%, the highest since the nation began to track it in 1958, mainly pressured by the cost of housing and utilities including a 98.4% surge in gas prices on the year.
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