Bitcoin and Ether fall on US economy worries and Fed hawkish comments on interest rates

[ad_1]

Bitcoin and Ether fell Thursday morning in Asia, along with most of the other top 10 non-stable cryptocurrencies, on concerns about the direction of the US economy and interest rates. Prices also lost ground overnight after the United States said it would take what it called major, international cryptocurrency enforcement action. This turned out to involve the relatively disappointing arrest of the Russian owner of the Hong Kong-registered exchange Bitzlato Ltd., but prices did not recover.

See related article: Silvergate Announces US$1 Billion Loss, Attributed to Crisis of Confidence in the Crypto Sector

Fast facts

Bitcoin fell 2.2% to US$20,686 in the 24 hours to 8am in Hong Kong, although it was still up 18.6% in the past calendar week. Ether fell 3.4% to US$1,514 to trim its gains for the same week to 9.1%, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Memecoin Shiba Inu jumped 6.2% to $0.0000112, the only CoinMarketCaps top 10 token by capitalization to rise, taking its weekly gains to 22.4%. This momentum comes as investors await the release of the Ethereum-based Shibarium Layer 2 network in the coming weeks.

Solana fell 9% to US$27.16, posting the biggest losses on the CoinMarketCaps list, but remains up 27.2% for the week and one of the best performing tokens for 2023.

Polygon fell 5.5% to US$0.94 and Cardano lost 5.4% to US$0.32, in the second and third biggest losses after Solana.

The total 24-hour crypto market capitalization fell 2.4% to $968.1 billion, while trading volume increased 28.5% to $61.6 billion.

The US Department of Justice said it charged Bitzlato Ltd. money laundering linked to US$700 million in cryptocurrencies and arrested its founder, Anatoly Legkodymov, in Miami. Whether you’re breaking our laws from China or Europe or abusing our financial system from a tropical island, you can expect to answer for your crimes in a US court, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said during an interview. a press conference at the Ministry of Justice, according to a Reuters report.

US stocks fell on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.8%, the S&P 500 slipped 1.6% and the Nasdaq Composite Index ended the day down 1.2%. The declines came as the US Commerce Department said retail sales fell 1.1% in December, matching the biggest drop in a year and surpassing the 0.8% decline economists had predicted to add to recession worries.

On top of that, St. Louis Federal Reserve Chairman James Bullard said the Fed should not delay raising interest rates to fight inflation until they are. greater than 5%.

Last month, the Fed raised interest rates by 50 basis points to between 4.25% and 4.5%, the highest in 15 years. The next Fed meeting is Jan. 31-Feb. 1, with CME Group analysts predicting a 94.2% chance of a 25 basis point hike.

See Related Article: FTX Claims $415M worth of Crypto Has Been Hacked Since Bankruptcy Filing

[ad_2]