Bitcoin, Ether gain most among top 10 cryptos; US stock futures mixed ahead of the Fed’s interest rate decision
Bitcoin and Ether were the biggest gainers in Wednesday trading in Asia, while all other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies traded mixed. Asian stock markets fell on fresh concerns about the banking sector and ahead of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision later on Wednesday. US stock futures were mixed.
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Crypto
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, was the biggest 24-hour gainer among the top 10 cryptocurrencies, rising 2.18% to US$28,669 by 4pm in Hong Kong, bringing its weekly gains to 1%.
Ether rose 1.67% to $1,866 and was the second biggest gainer in 24 hours. The world’s second-largest cryptocurrency gained 0.21% for the week, according to CoinMarketCap data.
XRP was the biggest loser of the day, falling 0.97% to $0.459 and down 2% on the week.
Binance’s native BNB token fell 0.2% to US$323, bringing its weekly loss to 3.94%. John Reed Stark, a former attorney for the Enforcement Division of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), said on Tuesday that the future of Binance may be in jeopardy due to several red flags, including the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) alleging that the exchange has breached the regulations. promises. Binance has denied allegations of wrongdoing as it battled regulatory scrutiny in the US this year.
Global crypto market capitalization increased 1.34% to $1.18 trillion, while total crypto market volume fell 0.4% to $34.65 billion.
NFT
The indices are proxy measures of the performance of the global NFT market. They are managed by CryptoSlam, a sister company of Forkast.News under the Forkast.Labs umbrella.
The Discard 500 NFT index fell 0.99% to 3,703.96 points in the 24 hours to 16:30 in Hong Kong, while it was down 0.75% for the week.
NFT sales on the Ethereum blockchain fell 10.9% in the past 24 hours to $22.6 million, according to CryptoSlam, as demand for the Bored Ape Yacht Club and Azuki collections cooled following yesterday’s trading session.
“The NFT market is entering a new stage of development, characterized by increased stability and maturity,” said John Stefanidis, co-founder and CEO of Balthazar.
“With so much capital deployed over the past two years, we should start to see the biggest advances in NFT technology we’ve ever seen come to fruition.”
Stock
US stock futures were mixed as of 16:30 in Hong Kong. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 1.08%, S&P 500 futures rose 0.091% and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.07%.
Asian stock markets were mostly down on Wednesday, with exchanges in mainland China and Japan closed for a public holiday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 1.18% after Tuesday’s decline on Wall Street, amid a warning by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on the US debt ceiling that the world’s biggest economy could run out of cash by June 1.
US employment data showed a cooling labor market, with vacancies in March falling to a two-year low.
Investors were cautious about the outcome of the Federal Reserve’s meeting later Wednesday. The US Federal Reserve is expected to raise its key interest rate by 25 basis points, bringing rates to 5% to 5.25% – the highest since September 2007 – before potentially ending its tightening cycle.
In Europe, German airline Deutsche Lufthansa’s earnings report showed a 40% rise in revenue to €7.02 billion ($7.7 billion) in the first quarter and said it expects earnings to exceed pre-Covid levels in the second quarter. Luxury carmaker Porsche also reported an 18.2% increase in sales.
Buoyed by positive earnings reports, the pan-European STOXX 600 rose 0.39% and Germany’s DAX 40 rose 0.51%.
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