Bitcoin, Ether Extend Refusal Amid US Lawsuit Against Binance; Asian stocks mixed

Bitcoin and Ether extended their decline in trading on Tuesday afternoon in Asia, along with most other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, after US regulators pulled up Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, for allegedly violating trading mandates. Asian markets were mostly higher on Tuesday, mirroring a rally in US stocks on Monday, as investor sentiment picked up after a series of positive announcements eased fears of a crisis in the banking sector.

See related article: Binance denies US accusations of violating trading rules, manipulating markets

Fast facts

• Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, lost 3.06% to US$26,960 in the 24 hours to 16:00 in Hong Kong, according to data from CoinMarketCap, and fell 2.22% in the past seven days. Ethereum fell 1.61% to US$1,724, after losing 0.6% on the week.

• BNB, the native token of the world’s largest crypto exchange Binance, saw the biggest decline among the top 10 cryptos. The token fell 5.19% in the past 24 hours to US$309, after the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on Monday it was filing a “civil enforcement action” against Binance and its top executives for allegedly violating trading rules.

• XRP was the only token among the top 10 cryptos to gain in Tuesday afternoon trade in Asia, climbing 5.61% to $0.4843, and is up 25.47% for the week. The win comes as Ripple Labs, whose payment network is powered by XRP, expects to win a lawsuit brought against it by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly selling $1.3 billion in unregistered securities.

• Global crypto market capitalization fell 1.96% to $1.13 trillion, while total crypto market volume increased 30.1% to $43.42 billion over the past 24 hours.

• The Nasdaq 500 NFT index fell 0.54% to 4,004.93 on the day and fell 3.34% 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.

• Asian stock markets mostly rose on Tuesday as concerns about a crisis in the banking industry eased. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 1.11%, South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.07% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.15%.

• The Shanghai Composite lost 0.19% and the Shenzhen Component Index fell 0.72%, amid concerns that Covid-19-related disruptions continue to hamper China’s economic recovery.

• Gold fell 0.24% to $1,951 an ounce, after falling 1% on Monday. The precious metal remains below the one-year high of $2,000 it touched last week.

• European stock markets rose for the second day in a row. The benchmark STOXX 600 rose 0.34% and Germany’s DAX 40 rose 0.5%.

• European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde will speak at the opening ceremony of the Bank for International Settlements’ Innovation Hub Eurosystem Center later Tuesday.

• London’s benchmark FTSE 100 rose 0.43% on the day, after Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said the country’s financial system is resilient and has robust capital, but warned interest rates could move higher.

• See related article: Is our banking system obsolete?