Bitcoin and Ether rose on Wednesday trade in Asia, along with all top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies, with Solana and Cardano leading the way. Asian equity markets traded mixed, while U.S. stock futures were down amid renewed banking sector concerns.
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Fast facts
Bitcoin rose 4.05% to US$28,383 in 24 hours to 4:00 p.m. in Hong Kong but is still down 5.62% on the week, according to CoinMarketCap data.
“The funding rate for Bitcoin has now turned negative, meaning shorts are paying to keep their position open. That spells extra pain the further Bitcoin moves up, making a short squeeze more likely,” crypto data platform Decentrader tweeted. A short squeeze occurs when an asset’s price rises, resulting in the liquidation of short positions.
Ether, the world’s second-biggest cryptocurrency, climbed 2.48% to US$1,862 but is down 10.14% on the week.
Solana’s SOL was the day’s biggest gainer, rising 4.91% to US$21.92, bringing its weekly losses to 10.04%. Cardano’s ADA was the second-highest gainer among the top 10 cryptos, climbing 4.46% to US$0.3967, while posting weekly losses of 8.70%.
Global crypto market capitalization gained 2.94% to US$1.18 trillion, while total crypto market volume rose 12.26% to US$40.64 billion in the last 24 hours.
The Forkast 500 NFT index slid 0.17% to 3,730.08 points on the day and fell 8.33% on the week. The index is a proxy measure of the performance of the global NFT market and includes 500 eligible smart contracts on a given day. It is managed by CryptoSlam, a sister company of Forkast.News under the Forkast Labs umbrella.
Asian equity markets were mixed on Wednesday. The Shanghai Composite lost 0.02%, while the Shenzhen Component Index rose 0.33%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gained 0.71% while Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 0.71%.
“Investors should brace for significant volatility in global financial markets over the next few weeks. We could see a 10% correction,” said Nigel Green, chief executive of financial advisory firm deVere Group, in a statement.
Equity markets reacted to renewed concerns about the wider impact of the recent banking crisis, as U.S. regional bank First Republic revealed that deposits shrank by 41% to US$104.5 billion in the first quarter, causing its shares to drop 45.4% on Tuesday.
European bourses traded in the red on Wednesday, as the benchmark STOXX 600 fell 0.69% and Germany’s DAX 40 weakened 0.55%. Investors are looking at a slew of corporate earnings from major European firms like Danone, Roche, Puma, Orange, Safran and Beiersdorf.
U.S. stock futures showed mixed results on Wednesday with a 0.42% rise in the S&P 500 Futures, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 1.02% and 1.98%, respectively.
The U.S. dollar index dropped 0.48% to 101.3 points as concerns about the banking system resurfaced. Meanwhile, the euro gained ground, rising 0.67% to US$1.10.
Gold inched up 0.04% to around US$1,998 per ounce.
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Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-ether-top-10-cryptos-110854192.html