Bitcoin Rising on Banking Jitters, Price Speculation; Ether Dips

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Bitcoin edged higher Monday morning in Asia on the first trading day of May to hold above the $29,000 mark as concerns over the US banking system resurfaced and amid bullish price forecasts for the token. Ether fell below US$1,900, paring its 5% gain in April. Most of the other top 10 non-stable cryptocurrencies traded lower, although Binances BNB gained after the world’s largest crypto exchange added the Sui blockchain to its Launchpool. Litecoin led the losers. US stock futures traded flat or lower in Asia ahead of the Fed’s interest rate decision this week. All three major US stock indexes posted gains in April.

See related article: Weekly Market Wrap: Bitcoin flirts with US$30,000, Ether regains US$1,900

Cryptographic Image: Envato Items

According to data from CoinMarketCap, bitcoin rose 0.48% to US$29,309 in the 24 hours to 09:00 in Hong Kong, holding a weekly gain of 5.32%, after hitting US$29,952 on Sunday.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency tested the US$27,000 lower line several times in April but gained more than 4% for the month for the longest streak of monthly gains since March 2021. This could foreshadow a surge in 2023 that could send Bitcoin to US$105,000, according to an analyst report from Bloomberg on Sunday.

According to Jamie Coutts, senior market structure analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, bitcoin could attract investment from global bond investors due to negative real rates and real yields.

Ether fell 0.81% to US$1,884, but was trading up 0.34% for the week. The second largest cryptocurrency in the world gained more than 5% for the month of April.

Binances BNB jumped 5.56% to $339.09, recording a weekly gain of 2.05%. Binance introduced the Sui blockchains SUI token to its Launchpool on Monday, allowing Binance users to stake their BNB and TrueUSD (TUSD) to mine the recently launched SUI, which has jumped in price by more than 20% in the past 24 hours. .

BNB also received a boost from Binances’ return to Japan. Sakura Exchange BitCoin (SEBC), a Japan-regulated crypto exchange that was acquired by Binance in November 2022, will end its domestic services by the end of May and launch a new service as Binance Japan from June 2023, according to a notice by SEBC on Friday.

Litecoin led the losers, falling 2.33% to US$88.67 but adding 1.56% for the week.

The total crypto market capitalization increased slightly by 0.09% in the past 24 hours to US$1.20 trillion. Total trading volume in the past 24 hours increased by 33.36% to $32.79 billion.

NFT

Indices are indirect measures of the performance of the global NFT market. They are operated by CryptoSlam, a sister company of Forkast.News under the Forkast.Labs umbrella.

In the non-fungible token (NFT) market, the Forkast 500 NFT Index edged up 0.37% to 3,757.67 in the 24 hours to 9:00 a.m. in Hong Kong, but remained 0.55% lower for the week. The index is an indirect measure of global NFT market performance and includes 500 eligible smart contracts. It is operated by CryptoSlam, a sister company of Forkast.News under the Forkast.Labs umbrella.

Mad Lads, a Solana-based NFT first premiered on April 21, had the highest seven-day sales volume on the market at over $7.63 million, beating Bored Ape Yacht Clubs (BAYC) for $7.04 million, according to data from CryptoSlam. The floor price of the NFT was 63.75 SOL at 09:30 in Hong Kong, almost 10 times higher than the first token hit at 6.9 SOL.

BAYC, one of the largest NFT collections by market capitalization, also saw an increase in sales volume over the past 24 hours, jumping 170.22% to $1.05 million, the largest volume on the market. NFT market.

Stocks Image: Getty Images

US equity futures traded flat to fall at 9:00 a.m. in Hong Kong. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged down 0.03%. S&P 500 futures and the Nasdaq Composite Index both fell 0.04%.

All three indexes closed higher last Friday on strong earnings from Intel Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp., and posted gains for the week and month of April, according to Reuters on Saturday.

However, last week’s stock market gains were overshadowed by worries about the banking sector. The share price of U.S.-based First Republic Bank plunged 43.20% on Friday after the lender reported a 40.8% drop in deposits, or about $100 billion, since the beginning of the year. Regulators are preparing to take over and sell the beleaguered bank, with several major financial institutions having submitted offers, according to The Wall Street Journal on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Meanwhile, in China, the world’s second-largest economy, the manufacturing PMI for April unexpectedly fell to 49.2 on the month, missing expectations for a 51.4 gain, indicating a slowing growth in the country, according to Reuters on Monday.

The Federal Reserve’s next interest rate decision is scheduled for May 3. The Fed has raised rates several times over the past year to bring inflation back to its 2% target range. With US inflation still trending around 5%, CME Group analysts now expect an 85.5% chance that the Fed will hike rates by 25 basis points this week.

US interest rates are currently between 4.75% and 5%, the highest since June 2006.

See Related Article: Coinbase Says SEC Legal Threats Punish Transparency and Undermine Public Listing Process

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