Bitcoin gains as investors diversify amid concerns about banking system; US stock futures rise

Bitcoin and the other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies opened the working week with gains in trading on Monday morning in Asia, as investors seek to diversify portfolios amid the banking crisis and the Federal Reserve’s latest rate hike. Litecoin led the gainers. US stock futures rose this morning as the authorities tried to reassure investors that the financial system is healthy after bank failures and sharp declines in some lenders’ shares.

See related article: Weekly Market Wrap: Bitcoin hovers around $28,000 as banking woes return. Will it reach $30,000?

Fast facts

• Bitcoin rose 1.69% to US$28,026 in the 24 hours to 09:00 a.m. in Hong Kong, adding 0.37% for the week, according to CoinMarketCap data. The world’s largest cryptocurrency fell below the $28,000 resistance level over the weekend and bounced back above it early Monday. Trading became choppy later in the morning, moving above and below that line.

• “Traders are flocking to Bitcoin and similar assets to diversify their holdings. Recent bank failures have also strengthened the case for investing in Bitcoin, along with murmurs of hyperinflation,” said Maxwell Goldstein, co-founder of art investment platform chain Freeport. Rejection. News on Friday. Due to fears of inflation, “investors are certainly looking for a safe haven, and Bitcoin fits the bill.”

• Ether rose 1.61% to $1,780, a weekly gain of 0.16%. Ethereum developer Matter Labs launched the zkSync Era mainframe on Friday, making it the first zero-knowledge scaling system for Ethereum to be opened up to general users.

• Litecoin led the gainers over the past 24 hours, gaining 1.85% to $93.57 and up 12.39% for the week.

• The total crypto market capitalization rose 1.34% in the last 24 hours to $1.17 trillion. Total trading volume in the last 24 hours fell by 4.67% to 31.46 billion USD.

• In the non-fungible token (NFT) market, the Forkast 500 NFT index fell 1.52% in the past 24 hours to 4,024.34 at 09:30 in Hong Kong, down 2.66% 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 Forkast’s sister company, CryptoSlam.

• US stocks closed up on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.41%, the S&P 500 rose 0.56%, and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.31%. All three indices recorded gains after a volatile week characterized by faltering banks and the Federal Reserve’s latest rate hike of 25 basis points.

• Despite the gains, banking concerns remain. Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest lender, saw the cost of its default insurance jump on Friday, sparking an 8% selloff in its stock, according to CNBC.

• The same day in the US, the Financial Stability Oversight Council said that although “some institutions have come under stress, the US banking system remains healthy and resilient”. Other officials from US President Joe Biden have repeated the same in recent weeks.

• Ahead of the opening of US stock markets on Monday, stock futures rose at 9:00 a.m. in Hong Kong. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 0.36 percent. S&P 500 futures rose 0.37%. Futures on the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.24 percent.

• Next week, the US Congress will hold a hearing on Wednesday on Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, both of which failed this month, and data releases on US inflation and GDP growth are expected.

• The Federal Reserve meets on May 3 to make its next move on interest rates to tackle inflation. Analysts at CME Group expect an 83.2% chance that the Fed will keep interest rates at 4.75% to 5%. The chance of another increase of 25 basis points is 16.8%, down from 34.2% on Friday.

• The Fed’s current forecast for the terminal rate in 2023 is 5.1%, the same as its December 2022 forecast, indicating that a further rate hike in 2023 could bring the Fed’s tightening cycle to an end.

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