Bitcoin, Ether Little Changed After Weekend Push; Solana, XRP give back some gains

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Bitcoin and Ether prices were little changed in Monday morning trading in Asia. Several of the top 10 non-stable cryptocurrencies took a breather after strong gains over the weekend on signs that inflation may have peaked in the US, leading investors to bet that the Federal Reserve may begin to slow interest rate increases.

See related article: Bitcoin Price Rebounds as US Inflation Cools

Fast facts

Bitcoin fell 0.4% to US$20,882 in the 24 hours to 8 a.m. in Hong Kong, but rose 22% in the past calendar week. The world’s largest cryptocurrency also surged above US$21,000 for the first time since the collapse of crypto exchange FTX in early November, reaching as high as US$21,075 on Saturday. Ether added 0.2% to US$1,552 for a 20.5% gain on the week, according to CoinMarketCap.

Solana fell 5.6% to change hands at US$22.89, posting the biggest loss on the list of the top 10 CoinMarketCaps by capitalization. Still, Solana is the top performer on the list for 2023 so far, up 58.2% on the week. The token rebounded after being sold off by FTX brokerage arm Alameda Research in an attempt to raise funds to stave off corporate collapse.

XRP fell 2.7% to trade at US$0.38, but is up 11.5% for the week. XRP saw more modest gains than most other major cryptos as the lawsuit between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Ripple Labs Inc., which uses XRP in its payment network, dims the token’s outlook.

The 24-hour total crypto market cap fell 0.13% to $979.6 billion, while trading volume fell 43.1% to $47.1 billion.

US stocks rose on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.3%, the S&P 500 Index gained 0.4% and the Nasdaq Composite Index ended the day up 0.7%. US markets are closed today for the Martin Luther King holiday

The US Consumer Price Index (CPI) for December released last week showed inflation rising 6.5% year-on-year, in line with expectations and lower than the 7.1% recorded in November. The drop was the largest monthly decline since April 2020.

Last month, the Fed raised interest rates by 50 basis points to between 4.25% and 4.5%, the highest in 15 years. It had raised rates by 75 basis points in the previous four consecutive meetings to curb inflation. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has warned of further rate hikes in 2023.

The next Fed meeting is Jan. 31-Feb. 1, with analysts at the CME Group predicting a 94.2% chance of a 25 basis point hike given the most recent CPI data.

See Related Article:Alameda liquidators liquidated while consolidating funds on DeFi lending platform Aave

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