Ether pauses as Bitcoin drops below US$30,000; Binance and Solana top gainers

Early on Monday morning in Asian trading, the price of one bitcoin dropped to slightly below US$30,000. After making significant gains following the Ethereum blockchain upgrade last week, Ether also hit a wall. With the exception of Solana, the BNB token of the Binance platform, and Litecoin, the majority of the other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies traded lower. U.S. market futures increased after last week’s gains, but they lost some of their momentum on Friday due to a conflicting prognosis for the economy.

Quick Facts

According to data from CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin decreased 1.47% to US$29,858 in the 24 hours leading up to 9:00 a.m. in Hong Kong, but it is still up 5.13% for the week. The token briefly crossed the $31,000 threshold on Friday before varying above that level throughout the weekend.

The euphoria surrounding the Ethereum upgrade and indications of a slowing in U.S. inflation in March contributed to Bitcoin’s rise last week. According to Marat Minkin, co-founder of the decentralised finance payment software TONBanking, lower inflation typically supports the purchase of risky assets, such as cryptocurrency. The CEO of investment firm Ark Invest, Cathy Wood, stated on Friday that the safe-haven sentiment surrounding cryptocurrencies is also being driven by concern regarding the future of the U.S. economy.

Ethereum lost 0.4% to $2,082 USD. The cryptocurrency has increased by roughly 12% over the past week, thanks in part to the Shanghai upgrade on Wednesday that permits investors to withdraw their staked Ether. According to data from Token Unlocks as of 9:00 a.m. in Hong Kong, over 992,000 ether had been withdrawn since Wednesday, and another 897,000 ether withdrawals are waiting. 10% or so of the total 17 million staked Ether is represented by both sums.

Binance’s BNB, which gained 3.07% to US$343.33 and saw a weekly gain of 9.79%, led the gainers. The biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world revealed on Friday that it had teamed up with the Brazilian Football Confederation to introduce the nation’s first non-fungible token (NFT).

Solana increased 3.01% to US$24.91, registering a 22.63% weekly increase. Saga, an Android smartphone connected with the Solana blockchain, was released on Thursday by Solana Mobile, a division of Solana Labs. Additionally, Solana Labs joined together with American beverage retailer Boba Guys to launch an in-store loyalty rewards programme.

In the previous day, the entire market value of cryptocurrencies fell by 0.76% to US$1.26 trillion. Over the previous 24 hours, the total trade volume increased 13.46% to reach US$38.86 billion.

The Forkast 500 NFT index increased 0.91% to 4,053.99 on the NFT market over the 24 hours leading up to 9:00 a.m. in Hong Kong, moving up 2.98% for the week. The index, which contains 500 eligible smart contracts on any given day, serves as a proxied indicator of the success of the global NFT market. It is run by CryptoSlam, a subsidiary of Forkast.Labs and a sister company to Forkast.News.

As of 9:00 a.m. in Hong Kong, U.S. stock futures were slightly higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased by 0.19 percent. The Nasdaq Composite Index edged up 0.01% while the S&P 500 futures increased by 0.17%.

The three indexes declined on Friday, even though they had all risen for the week, as investors received conflicting signals from American economic data over the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates at its next meeting on May 3. According to a survey released on Friday, consumer confidence increased a little bit in April while retail sales dropped in March. These two readings point to a slowing of inflation.

But major banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., and Wells Fargo & Co. reported first-quarter results that exceeded estimates, pointing to a stronger economy that may fuel inflation, according to a Reuters report on Friday.

U.S. interest rates are currently between 4.75% and 5%, the highest level since June 2006. According to analysts at the CME Group, there is now a 17.9% chance that the Fed won’t raise rates at its next meeting on May 3, up from 66.5% last Friday.