Bitcoin and Solana continued their rallies in Tuesday afternoon trading in Asia, both up over 10% in the past week. However, Ether continued to slip as the market awaited the upcoming Etherium “Merge.”
See related article: Markets: Bitcoin, Solana lead gains in crypto top ten, Ether slips ahead of Merge
Fast facts
- Bitcoin was up 0.5% in the past 24 hours to trade at US$22,286 at 4 p.m. in Hong Kong. Solana retained the largest gains among the top 10 tokens by market capitalization from the morning, up 8.7%. Ethereum continued its slip from Monday, down 2.3% to US$1,716, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
- Ethereum slumped as the market monitored the network’s highly anticipated transition to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, which is expected to conclude Thursday. Although the “Merge” is broadly seen as positive for Ethereum, it creates uncertainty, with investors waiting to see how it unfolds, according to Roger Zhou, head of business development at Singapore-based digital asset management firm Metalpha.
- “We can see the factor with the greatest influence on the ETH price is the upcoming ETH merge… if the merge goes well, ETH will likely rise afterward,” wrote Zhou in an email to Forkast.
- TerraClassicUSD was the day’s biggest loser, down 18.7%, following a significant gain last week. The legacy ‘stablecoin’ from the Terra ecosystem experienced a massive uptick and speculation last week, but that rally appears to be fading.
- The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite were up Monday, indicating expectations of a positive August consumer price index that will be released later today. Gains in those indexes often correlate with higher Bitcoin prices.
- Asian equity markets experienced a quiet Tuesday. The Nikkei 225 gained 0.25%. After closure on Monday for a public holiday, the Shanghai SE Composite Index added 0.05%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 0.16%.
See related article: All aboard the good ship Ethereum for The Merge. Next stop?