Bitcoin, Ether rise; Polygon leads crypto rebound

Bitcoin and Ether rose in Thursday morning trade in Asia, along with all top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies. Polygon led the gains. The gain came against a backdrop of falls in US stocks on Wednesday, amid more concerns about inflation readings and how this could affect interest rate policy from the Federal Reserve. However, strong signs of a boom in China’s economy are increasing appetite for risk assets.

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Fast facts

• Bitcoin rose 2.11% in the past 24 hours to $23,639 as of 8 a.m. in Hong Kong, according to CoinMarketCap data. The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization pared its decline over the past seven days to 2.25%. Ether rose 3.57% to $1,663 for a weekly gain of 1.24%.
• Polygon rose 4.52% to $1.25. The blockchain platform on Wednesday launched Polygon ID, a product based on the zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) technology, which allows users to issue verifiable credentials without revealing private information. However, the token has some ground to make up as it is still down 10.63% in seven days.
• Litecoin rose 4.21% to trade at $97.74. Crypto intelligence company IntoTheBlock reported on Tuesday that around 53% of Litecoin owners are sitting on gains, compared to a low of less than 15% in 2022. Litecoin replaced Shiba Inu in the 10th largest non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, adding 2.76% for the week.
• The total crypto market capitalization rose 1.57% in the last 24 hours to $1.08 trillion. And the total trading volume in the last 24 hours increased by 13.91% to 48.60 billion USD.
• February data on China’s manufacturing activity released on Wednesday returned to the highest in nearly 11 years, reflecting the country’s scrapping of its zero-Covid policy and providing signs that the world’s second-largest economy can help lift global trade and investment.
• However, US stocks generally closed lower on Tuesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was little changed with a fall of 0.02%, the S&P 500 fell 0.47% and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.66%.
• The focus in the US is still inflation and interest rate policy from the Federal Reserve. Reuters reported that the debate among Fed officials is whether a further major rate hike is necessary or smaller increases and keeping rates higher for longer is the more appropriate policy to bring down inflation and ensure a soft landing for the economy.
• The Fed set US interest rates between 4.5% to 4.75% in February, the highest since October 2007. Analysts at CME Group expect a 70.1% chance the Fed will raise rates by another 25 basis points this month. They also predict a 29.9% chance of a 50 basis point increase, up from the 24.0% reported on Wednesday.

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