Bitcoin and Ethereum inched up in Monday afternoon trading in Asia. Most other non-stablecoin top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization were little changed, with Dogecoin leading declines.
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Fast facts
- Bitcoin gained 0.14% in the last 24 hours to trade at US$16,857 at 4 p.m. Hong Kong time on Monday, while Ether gained 0.15% to US$1,220, according to CoinMarketCap data.
- Dogecoin was the biggest loser in the top 10 cryptos, falling 1.87% to trade at US$0.07563 in the past 24 hours. Major Dogecoin advocate Elon Musk may soon step down from the top job at social media platform Twitter.
- Binance’s BNB token traded at US$243.32, a drop of 0.72% over the past 24 hours. Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has been accused of deliberately causing the collapse of Bahamas-based FTX.com that was once the second-largest exchange. Binance may also be probed by the U.S. Justice Department over money laundering violations.
- XRP inched up 0.64% to trade at US$0.3512, after dropping 1.64% in Monday morning trade in Asia.
- Equity markets in the U.S. and Hong Kong were closed on Monday for Christmas. U.S. equity markets rose on Friday after posting a loss for the week over fears of an emerging recession. On Friday, the Nasdaq composite closed 0.2% higher, the S&P 500 was up 0.6% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.5%.
- The U.S. central bank raised interest rates by half a percentage point this month after the consumer price index, a key inflation indicator, rose 7.1% in November from a year earlier. U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has said there will be more interest rate hikes next year even as the economy moves towards a potential recession.
- See related article: The last 12 months the year to forget, says India’s WazirX crypto exchange
