Bitcoin Plunges But Holds Above US$23,000, Ether Slips, Polygon Biggest Top 10 Gainer

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Bitcoin and Ether gave up some of their January gains in Friday morning trading in Asia, though both are still higher for the week. Trading was mixed with most of the top 10 non-stable cryptocurrencies creeping into the red, with the exception of Polygon, which rallied on more partnership news. US stocks rose overnight as economic indicators showed stronger growth.

See related article: Regulators Shouldn’t Legitimize Purely Speculative Crypto Activity: Singapore Monetary Authority Chief

Fast facts

Bitcoin fell 0.36% to US$23,026 in the 24 hours to 8am in Hong Kong, but remains up 9.21% for the seven days to date. Ether fell 0.53% to US$1,602 for a gain of 3.23% in the same weekly time frame, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Most of the other top 10 non-stable crypto tokens gave up some recent gains in the morning, but Polygons MATIC rose 13% to $1.12 after blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence announced on Thursday that it would start supporting the Polygon blockchain in early 2023. MATIC has nearly jumped 50% since the start of the year on a series of bullish developments, such as a partnership with Mastercard and the NFT Fractal gaming platform. developing on the Polygon network.

The total crypto market capitalization rose 0.14% to US$1.05 trillion, while trading volume fell 10% to US$55.38 billion.

US stock markets ended higher on Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.61%, the S&P 500 gained 1.1% while the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.76% on signs that the US economy, the world’s largest, is heading to a soft landing after a series of rapid interest rate hikes last year to try and dampen a surge in inflation.

U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) published overnight rose 2.9% last quarter, beating the 2.6% expected in a Reuters poll. Consumer spending rose 2.1%, while weekly jobless claims fell 6,000 to 186,000, the lowest since April.

While some economists polled by Reuters still expect the United States to enter a recession in the second half of 2023, the opinion is that it will be short and moderate due to the strength of the labor market.

Last month, the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 50 basis points to between 4.25% and 4.5%, the highest in 15 years. The Fed meets next week and the market consensus is that it will raise rates again, but by 25 basis points less aggressively.

See Related Article: Binance Claims It Mistakenly Mixed Client Funds with Collateral for Binance-Issued Tokens

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