Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, recovered to trade above $28,000 in Asia on Tuesday afternoon. Ether and most of the other top 10 non-volatile cryptocurrencies also rose, with Dogecoin the biggest gainer. Asian markets were mixed after weak US factory data and renewed concerns about recession and inflation as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC+) unexpectedly cut oil output.
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Fast facts
- Bitcoin rose 0.26% to $28,029 in Hong Kong in the 24 hours to 4 p.m. Tuesday, extending its weekly gain to 3.97%, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Ether is up 0.96% at $1,812 and has strengthened 5.09% in the last seven days.
- Dogecoin was the biggest gainer among the top 10 cryptos, rising 26.1% to $0.09845 in the last 24 hours, for a weekly gain of 35.72%. Memecoin’s price surge comes after Elon Musk, CEO of social media platform Twitter and a fan of the token, changed Twitter’s blue bird icon to the Japanese Shiba Inu, the same type of dog featured in Dogecoin.
- XRP fell the most on the day, down 3.07% to $0.4979, but strengthened by 2.85% for the week. Ripple Labs, whose crypto payment platform is powered by XRP, could win a favorable ruling in a lawsuit filed against it by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly selling $1.3 billion in unregistered securities.
- The global crypto market capitalization increased by 0.77% to US$1.17 trillion, while the total crypto market volume increased by 41.98% to US$49.31 billion in the last 24 hours.
- Asian stock markets were mixed on Tuesday after weak US production data and concerns about inflation and economic growth, as OPEC+ cut oil output by more than 1 million barrels a day. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.66% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 0.35%. The Shanghai Composite rose 0.49%, while the Shenzhen Composite Index fell 0.25%.
- The Forkast 500 NFT index slipped 1.05% on the day to 4,014 points, representing a weekly increase of 0.17%. The index is a proxy measure of global NFT market performance and includes 500 eligible smart contracts on any given day. It is managed Forecast Labs data branch, CryptoSlam.
- European stock markets opened higher on Tuesday, with the benchmark STOXX 600 up nearly 0.35% and Germany’s DAX 40 up 0.57% at 11 a.m. local time, after data showed the euro zone producer price inflation slowed more than expected in February.
- European Central Bank (ECB) Governing Council member Robert Holzmann has stated that the ECB may raise interest rates by another half point if the crisis in the banking sector does not worsen, according to a Bloomberg report.
- “If things don’t get really horrendous in May, I think we can afford another 50 basis points, and particularly if we don’t get a social consensus to contain inflation, we’re going to have to do more to get that going,” he said. Holtzman.
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