Bitcoin bounced back above US$19,000 in Friday morning trading in Asia as Cardano announced a successful hard fork to their upgraded Vasil network. XRP led gains among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
See related article: Cryptocurrency lobby group gets court approval to weigh in on SEC vs Ripple’s XRP lawsuit
Fast facts
- Bitcoin was up 4.2% in the past 24 hours to trade at US$19,307 at 10:30 a.m. in Hong Kong, according to CoinMarketCap. Ethereum gained 5.6% to trade at US$1,327, narrowing the decline over the past seven days to 9.6%.
- Cardano’s token ADA was up after Input Output Hong Kong announced successfully hard forking the Cardano blockchain as part of the Vasil upgrade early this morning, a move that is expected to improve scalability and efficiency. ADA rallied 4.2% at US$0.46.
- XRP led gains amongst all cryptocurrencies, rising over 20% to trade at US$0.49, following the grant of another motion that set Dec. 9 as a deadline for third-parties to submit motions to seal evidence in the case.
- XRP’s recent gains have helped it overtake Binance’s USD stablecoin as the sixth largest token by market capitalization. BNB was trading up 3.5%.
- Gains in cryptocurrency markets differed from declines in major US equity indexes a day after the U.S. Fed’s rate announcement on Thursday morning in Hong Kong time, with the agency signaling more aggressive monetary tightening into 2023.
- Overnight, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 0.4%, the S&P 500 Index ended 0.8% lower, and the Nasdaq Composite Index lost 1.4%.
See related article: Markets: XRP bounces back, Bitcoin stuck under US$19,000, Ether loses more ground post-Merge