Bitcoin and Ether prices strengthened in Wednesday afternoon trade, along with all other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Cardano led gains at 6.91%, followed by Dogecoin at 5.21%, though prices of top 10 tokens remain subdued on the week.
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Fast facts
Bitcoin rose 1.58% to US$22,124 in the 24 hours to 4 p.m. in Hong Kong, but lost 4.74% on the week. Ethereum climbed 2.79% to change hands at US$1,548, after losing 7.74% in the last seven days, according to CoinMarketCap data.
Cardano led gains among top 10 cryptos, rising 6.91% to US$0.3842, but posted a weekly loss of 3.88%. Dogecoin gained 5.21% to US$0.08604 after losing 6.75% on the week.
The global crypto market cap rose 2.24% on the day to US$1.03 trillion, with trading volumes increasing 9.8% to US$58.21 billion.
BNB, the native token of world’s largest crypto exchange Binance, gained 1.24% to US$297, after losing 10.36% over the last seven days. The rise comes after Binance’s chief executive Changpeng Zhao said there is an increasing need for non-U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins as regulatory pressures in the U.S. intensifies.
Asian equity markets declined on Wednesday as traders took in U.S. inflation data and comments from central banks on higher interest rates. The U.S. Labor Department reported on Tuesday a year-on-year increase of 6.4% in the January consumer price index, higher than the expected 6.2%. But inflation in the world’s biggest economy cooled from a 40-year high of 9.1% in June 2022, and has been slowing over the last few months.
“There has been a shift as markets are now betting on a longer period of higher interest rates as they begin to take heed of the message from the U.S. Federal Reserve officials that there’s still a way to cool inflation in the face of a robust labor market,” Nigel Green, chief executive of financial advisory firm deVere Group, said.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slipped 1.65% on Wednesday and the Shenzhen Component Index dropped 0.25%, while the Shanghai Composite declined 0.39%.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 0.37% while India’s Sensex index at the Bombay Stock Exchange dipped 0.15% at 1.36 p.m. local time.
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Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/markets-bitcoin-ether-extend-gains-104706528.html