Bitcoin, Ether Fall Amid Interest Rate Hike Fears, Silvergate Liquidation; Discard NFT 500 Index Slips 0.79%

Bitcoin and Ether fell in evening trade in Asia on Thursday, with XRP the only gainer over 24 hours among the 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market cap. Global crypto market capitalization fell 1.51% to $992.83 billion on the day after US crypto bank Silvergate said it would voluntarily liquidate. The new Forkast NFT 500 index fell, and Asian stock markets were mixed.

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Fast facts

• Bitcoin fell 1.71% to US$21,650 in the 24 hours as of 18:00 in Hong Kong on Thursday, according to CoinMarketCap data. The largest cryptocurrency measured in market value is down 7.65% on the week. Ether fell 1.45% to $1,532 after losing 6.85% in the past seven days.

• XRP remained a market outlier and the biggest gainer of the day among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap. The token was also the third biggest gainer among all tokens, rising 3.2% to $0.39 and up 4.16% on the week.

• Altcoin Kava outperformed the broader market with a gain of over 6%, while Toncoin rallied over 3.35%.

• The global cryptocurrency market capitalization fell further, below the $1 trillion benchmark, to $992.83 billion. Total crypto market volume fell 5.1% to $44.20 billion in the last 24 hours.

• In his second day of congressional testimony, US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell reiterated his message that interest rates may need to rise more than previously estimated, but also added that the March rate hike is not set and remains data dependent. The US Dollar Index (DXY) is up nearly 3.5% since February 1st.

• Asian shares were largely flat, following similar results in the US Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index saw the biggest loss of 0.63%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.63%. The Shanghai Composite in China fell 0.22 percent.

• Markets in Europe had a lower trend this day. England’s FTSE MIB fell 1.19% and the STOXX 600 fell 0.57%.

• Dismiss The NFT 500 index fell 0.79% to 4,241.17 in the last 24 hours as of 18:00 on Thursday in Hong Kong. The Discard NFT 500 Index is a proxy measure of the performance of the global NFT market and includes 500 eligible smart contracts on a given day.

• (Corrects the market value to ‘billion’ in point four.)

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