Bitcoin held onto gains above US$19,000 in late afternoon trading in Asia. Ethereum also rallied to post the biggest gain among tokens in CoinMarketCap’s top 10 by market capitalization. Terra Luna Classic surged more than 50%.
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Fast facts
- Bitcoin rose 2.1% in the past 24 hours to US$19,192 at 4:30 p.m. in Hong Kong, adding to gains from earlier in the day, while Ether rose 6.3% to US$1,613, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
- The native token of the original Terra blockchain, Terra Classic, jumped 51.6% in the prior 24 hours to US$0.00053 after Terra announced a free Luna airdrop to its holders. Terra Classic is now up 117.8% over seven days. TerraClassicUSD climbed 20.1%.
- The upcoming Merge of the Ethereum network is generating some optimism among investors, but the gains may be short-lived, Roger Zhou, head of business development at Singapore-based digital asset management firm Metalpha, told Forkast in an email.
- “The main reason behind this [gain] is the oversold rebound and the good news from the ETH merge,” Zhou said. “The real recovery may have to wait until the end of this round of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.”
- Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will be speaking at the Cato Institute in the U.S. on Thursday.
- Asia equity markets had a mixed day, though the Nikkei 225 index rose a strong 2.31% on the back of gains on Wall Street overnight. However, the Hong Kong Hang Seng index closed down 1%, and the Shanghai Composite index lost 0.33%.
- Marcus Sotiriou, an analyst at U.K-based digital asset broker GlobalBlock, highlighted the U.S. consumer inflation index data set to be released on Sept. 13. “Last month CPI was 8.5% year-over-year. If the number released next week is lower than this figure the market should see some relief. If the number is the same or higher, however, investors could remain cautious about risk-assets, including crypto,” he said.
- (Corrects name of Metalpha official.)
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