Bitcoin, Ether rebound after early morning drop; US stock futures rise on Meta outlook

Bitcoin rose on Thursday morning in Asia to trade above US$29,000, recovering from a sharp drop earlier. Ether rose, while other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies traded mixed. Cardano’s Ada token led the gainers. US stock futures rose in Asia, boosted by stronger overnight earnings from the Meta. Wall Street closed mixed on Wednesday amid several concerns about the banking industry.

See related article: Binance.US cites ‘hostile’ regulator, pulls away from $1.3 billion deal to buy Voyager Digital

Fast facts

• Bitcoin rose 3.47% to US$29,306 in the 24 hours to 09:00 a.m. in Hong Kong, according to CoinMarketCap data. The token is up 1.32% over a seven-day week.

• The world’s largest cryptocurrency has been on a rollercoaster ride this week, hitting $29,995 on Wednesday before falling to as low as $27,324 on Thursday amid speculation that more Bitcoin was move to exchangesa typical precursor to sales.

• Ether gained 2.95% to $1,922. That’s down 1.22% for the week, but it accounted for most of the losses over the past seven days. As with Bitcoin, the token has bounced around in the past 24 hours, falling to a low of $1,792 in early Thursday trading in Asia.

• Cardano’s Ada led the gainers, rising 4.07% to US$0.4105, although the token still posted a 2% loss for the week.

• Binance’s BNB led the losers, falling 1.07% to $334.77. Binance.US, a crypto exchange created by Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao to serve US customers, this week pulled out of a US$1.3 billion deal to buy bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital, raising speculation that Binance may face a lawsuit over the withdrawal from Voyager Creditors. Still, BNB is up 3.10% for the week, the biggest gainer among the 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies.

• The total crypto market capitalization rose 2.22% in the last 24 hours to $1.21 trillion. The total trading volume in the last 24 hours increased by 65.72% to 66.99 billion USD.

• In the non-fungible token (NFT) market, the Forkast 500 NFT index fell 0.69% to 3,707.23 in the 24 hours to 9:00 a.m. in Hong Kong, down 8.06% 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 managed by CryptoSlam, a sister company of Forkast.News under the Forkast.Labs umbrella.

• U.S. stock futures were trading higher as of 9 a.m. in Hong Kong. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 0.04 percent. The S&P 500 rose 0.17% higher and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.43%. Meta rose after hours following an unexpected revenue increase in the first quarter and a better outlook for the current quarter. This followed Alphabet and Microsoft beating earnings expectations earlier this week and boosting some optimism around technology companies.

• Concerns about the US banking industry continue, however, as First Republic Bank shares fell nearly 30% on Wednesday. US regulators may downgrade their assessments of the bank’s condition, which could further limit First Republic’s access to liquidity, according to Bloomberg on Thursday.

• Data from the United States on Wednesday provided a mixed outlook for the economy, with falling orders for key American-made goods and a narrowing of the international trade deficit, according to Reuters on Thursday.

• US gross domestic product (GDP) for the first quarter is out Thursday and personal consumption expenditures on Friday. Analysts at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta have cut their forecast for real GDP growth in the first quarter from 2.5% on 18 April to 1.1% on 26 April.

• These numbers all feed into expectations around the Federal Reserve’s next move on interest rates, after a year-long policy of raising interest rates to slow the pace of inflation. US interest rates are currently between 4.75% and 5%, the highest since June 2006.

• Analysts at CME Group now expect a 26.9% chance the Fed will leave rates unchanged at its next meeting on May 3, while 73.1% predict a 25 basis point increase, down from 75.8% on Wednesday.

See related article: The CEO of Mythical Games says that US regulatory uncertainty accounted for the firm’s conservative stance on crypto