Bitcoin Drops, Ether Increases, Dogecoin Rises After Twitter Icon Change

Bitcoin dipped below the US$28,000 mark in mixed trade on Tuesday morning in Asia, while Ether rose. Both tokens have continued to rise over the past seven days. Dogecoin surged nearly 20% in the past 24 hours after Twitter CEO Elon Musk, a longtime fan of the meme token, switched the Twitter icon to the Dogecoin image. US stocks traded mixed on Monday as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies (OPEC+) unexpectedly cut oil production, while a decline in US production reignited concerns about a possible recession in the world’s largest economy.

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Fast facts

• Bitcoin fell 1.20% to US$27,771 in the 24 hours to 9:00 a.m. in Hong Kong, but is still up 3% for the week, according to CoinMarketCap data. Investors may have taken profits following the gains in the world’s largest cryptocurrency in recent weeks.

• Ethereum rose 0.84% ​​to $1,805 and traded up 5.79% for the week.

• Dogecoin led the gainers, rising 18.51% to $0.09331 for a weekly jump of 28.38%. This followed Elon Musk’s move on Monday to change the blue bird icon on Twitter to a Japanese Shiba Inu, the same dog image used by the meme coin. Musk also filed a lawsuit to dismiss a $258 billion lawsuit in which Dogecoin investors accused him of price manipulation, according to a Reuters report on Saturday.

• XRP led the losers, falling 5.44% to $0.4906, although it is still up 3.26% for the week and has gained 40% since the start of the year on speculation in the lawsuit filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission against Ripple Labs – whose crypto. the payment platform is powered by XRP – could be resolved in a favorable ruling for Ripple.

• The total crypto market capitalization fell by 0.27% in the last 24 hours to $1.17 trillion. Total trading volume in the last 24 hours rose 55.83% to USD 49.45 billion.

• In the non-fungible token (NFT) market, the Forkast 500 NFT index fell 0.85% to 4,029.09 in the 24 hours to 09:00 in Hong Kong, but added 0.21% for the week. The index is a proxy measure of the performance of the global NFT market and includes 500 eligible smart contracts on a given day. It is administered by Discard Labs data branch, CryptoSlam.

• NFT prices fell as investors realized that “the pump the markets got from blurring is over and the projects are now going to discover their true floor,” said CryptoSlam NFT strategist Yehudah Petscher Rejection. News on Tuesday.

• However, NFT sales are declining in some markets. Sandbox, an ethereum-based metaverse game and NFT marketplace, logged over USD 1 billion in NFT sales in the past month, according to Sandbox Chief Operating Officer and co-founder Sebastien Borget. “We haven’t really seen winter at all … So overall, the ecosystem is growing,” Borget said in an interview with Rejection. News on Monday.

• US stocks closed mixed on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.98%, the S&P 500 rose 0.37%, and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.27%.

• The OPEC+ cut in crude oil production announced on Sunday could lift oil prices to $100 a barrel from around $80 today, Reuters reported on Tuesday, adding to inflation concerns in some major economies.

• The U.S. manufacturing purchasing managers’ index for March came in at 46.3%, down from 47.7% in February and a fourth straight month of contraction, according to the Institute for Supply Management on Monday. The data put the focus back on a possible recession in the US, according to a Reuters report on Tuesday.

• The decline in US manufacturing is the latest indicator that the Federal Reserve’s nine rate hikes since March 2022 to curb inflation are putting the brakes on the broader economy.

• US interest rates are now between 4.75% and 5%, the highest since June 2006. Analysts at CME Group are mixed on the next move on interest rates at the May 3 Fed meeting. About 45% of analysts forecast no change, while 54.8% expect a 25 basis point gain, up from 49.6% on Monday.

• U.S. stock futures traded flat to lower at 9 a.m. in Hong Kong. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 0.01%, S&P 500 futures were down 0.07% and the Nasdaq Composite Index was down 0.18%. US economic data coming out this week includes the Services Purchasing Managers Index for February.

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