Bitcoin Falls Below USD 30,000; Ether takes a breather; Binance, Solana lead the winners

Bitcoin fell in early Monday morning trading in Asia to move just below the US$30,000 mark. Ether also stalled after strong gains that followed last week’s upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain. Most of the other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies traded lower, with the exception of Solana, the BNB token of the Binance exchange, and Litecoin. U.S. stock futures edged higher after gains last week, although they lost some ground on Friday amid a mixed outlook for the economy.

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Fast facts

• Bitcoin fell 1.47% to US$29,858 in the 24 hours to 09:00 in Hong Kong, but is still up 5.13% for the week, according to CoinMarketCap data. The token briefly breached the $31,000 mark on Friday, but then hovered above $30,000 over the weekend.

• Bitcoin’s gains last week came amid optimism surrounding the Ethereum upgrade and signs of a slowdown in US inflation in March. Lower inflation usually encourages the purchase of risky assets, including cryptocurrencies, said Marat Minkin, co-founder of decentralized financial payment app TONBanking. Cathy Wood, CEO of investment manager Ark Invest, said on Friday that uncertainty about the outlook for the US economy is also driving the safe-haven message around cryptocurrencies.

• Ethereum fell 0.40% to USD 2,082. The token has risen by around 12% in the past seven days, which included Wednesday’s Shanghai upgrade that allows investors to withdraw their stake Ether. Starting at. As of 9 a.m. in Hong Kong, over 992,000 Ether had been withdrawn since Wednesday, while withdrawals of another 897,000 Ether are pending, according to data from Token Unlocks. Both amounts represent approximately 10% of the total stake of 17 million Ether.

• Binance’s BNB led the gainers, rising 3.07% to US$343.33, for a weekly gain of 9.79%. The world’s largest crypto exchange announced on Friday a partnership with the Brazilian Football Confederation to launch the first non-fungible token (NFT) for the country’s national football league.

• Solana rose 3.01% to $24.91, with a weekly jump of 22.63%. Solana Mobile, a subsidiary of Solana Labs, launched Saga on Thursday, an Android smartphone integrated with the Solana blockchain. Solana Labs also partnered with US-based beverage retailer Boba Guys for a chain loyalty rewards program

• The total crypto market cap fell 0.76% in the last 24 hours to $1.26 trillion. The total trading volume in the last 24 hours rose 13.46% to 38.86 billion USD.

• In the NFT market, the Forkast 500 NFT index rose 0.91% to 4,053.99 in the 24 hours to 09:00 in Hong Kong, up 2.98% 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 rose as of 9 a.m. in Hong Kong. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.19%. S&P 500 futures rose 0.17% and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.01% higher.

• The three indexes fell on Friday, although all posted gains for the week, as US economic data sent mixed messages to investors about what the Federal Reserve will do about interest rates at its next meeting on May 3. Consumer sentiment rose in April, according to a report on Friday, while retail sales fell in March, both readings that suggest inflation is cooling.

• However, first-quarter earnings of major banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co beat expectations, suggesting a stronger economy that could feed inflation, according to a Reuters report on Friday.

• US interest rates are currently between 4.75% and 5%, the highest since June 2006, and analysts at CME Group now see a 17.9% chance that the Fed will not raise rates at its next meeting on May 3, while 82 .1% predict a 25 basis point rate hike, up from 66.5% last Friday.

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