Bitcoin was little changed and Ether gained on Monday morning in Asia, with prices mixed by most of the other top 10 non-stable cryptocurrencies. Solana added to gains after a decline that followed being labeled as a security by the US financial regulator. Litecoin led the gainers, still on optimism of being listed in token trading on the Wall Street-backed EDX Markets exchange that opened on June 20.
mixed crypto
Bitcoin added 0.41% to $30,730.25 in the last 24 hours at 6:30 a.m. in Hong Kong, according to CoinMarketCap data. After a jump that followed a series of applications for Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the final weeks of June, the world's largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has lost direction, adding just 0.61% in the last seven days.
The US regulator that approves ETFs, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), indicated on Friday that it was not impressed by Bitcoin ETF applications from financial heavyweights such as black rock and fidelity investmentsaccording to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
Ether, the world's second-largest token by market capitalization, added 1.49% to $1,954.67. It has gained 2.65% over the seven days.
Solana was among the winners in early Asian mixed trading for 10 other non-stable cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. The token was up 5.48% at $19.43 for a weekly gain of 14.47%.
Solana is recovering after a series of bearish indicators last week, with Solana-based non-fungible token (NFT) protocol Cardinal saying it was Turning off, citing "macroeconomic challenges". Neobank Revolut and cryptocurrency exchange reportedly also said US-based users last Wednesday that it will remove Solana, along with Cardano and Polygon.
The three tokens were among the cryptocurrencies the SEC named as illegally issued financial securities in its lawsuit filed last month against exchanges Coinbase and Binance.US.
Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum wrote on Twitter on Friday that the tokens do not deserve to be attacked. โIf ethereum ends up โwinningโ through all the other blockchains getting kicked out of exchanges, that is not an honorable way to win, and in the long run, probably not even a win.โ
Litecoin led the gainers up 6.37% in the last 24 hours to $112.96. The token is up 27.98% in the last seven days.
Litecoin, which was created in 2011 as a hard fork of Bitcoin, was one of four tokens selected for trading on the EDX Markets exchange, backed by Citadel Securities and Fidelity Investments. The other tokens are Bitcoin, Ether, and Bitcoin Cash. New Jersey-based EDX opened its doors despite the Campaign in crypto from US regulators.
Kraken, the California-based cryptocurrency exchange, was tidy by a US judge on Friday to submit information about its users to the Internal Revenue Service in an investigation of unreported tax liabilities. The crypto exchange was fined $30 million in February from the SEC for its staking services, which the federal agency said were an offering of unregistered securities.
Other cryptocurrency movers included Tron, which fell 1.85% to $0.07572 but gained 3.31% for the week. Binance's BNB token was down 0.31% at $247.13, and Cardano's ADA was down 0.13% at $0.2905.
Total cryptocurrency market capitalization increased 0.02% to $1.2 trillion, and trading volume fell 7.54% to $27.26 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
NFT "brutal weekend"
In the non-fungible token (NFT) market, the Forkast 500 NFT Index fell 1.49% to 2,910.36 in the 24 hours to 7:30 a.m. in Hong Kong. The index is down 4.59% for the week.
Total NFT transaction volume fell 9.68% to $28.3 million, while volume on Ethereum rose 3.12% to $22.3 million.
โBrutal weekend for NFTs,โ said Yehudah Petscher, NFT strategist at Forkast Labs, the parent company of Forkast.News. "It might be easy to point to Azuki's Elementals mint as the catalyst, but the declining average sales and rock bottom prices on the best pre-mint Elementals collections showed we were on the cusp of another free fall."
the adzuki elementals The collection began minting last Tuesday and sold out in 15 minutes, but it left collectors disappointed as the latest collection looked almost the same as the original.
Azuki founder Alex Xu, who goes by Zagabond, met with his community last Thursday to address complaints about mint and Elementals issued a public apology on Twittersaying they "missed the mark" and that the new release diluted the value of the popular collection.
Bored Ape Yacht Club's Ethereum-based NFTs topped the volume rankings on Cryptoslam with US$3.87 million. Another Ethereum-based collection, The Captainz, came in second with $2.3 million.
Over the weekend, the Memeland team behind The Captainz NFTs, revealed their PFPs or profile picture art updates for the collection, but got a mixed to negative response. โMost of the negative responses to the art came from people who didn't know that the art could be upgraded with purchasable features,โ Petscher explained. "Without these traits, the base characters are almost identical, which caused some confusion in the NFT community."
US stock futures little changed
US stock futures were little changed starting at 10:20 am in Hong Kong. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 0.029%, S&P 500 futures were down 0.011%, while Nasdaq futures added 0.068%.
US stocks rose during regular trading on Friday, the last day of the first half of 2023, though they face trading disruptions this week with limited trading hours on Monday and the July 4 holiday on Tuesday, when the stock markets will be closed.
Economic indicators to be released this week include US manufacturing activity on Monday, as well as a monthly employment report on Friday. Tesla Inc Sunday advertisement record vehicle sales in the second quarter is a bullish factor for investors.
Japan stocks rose on Monday after Friday's rally on Wall Street, with technology stocks leading the gains in Tokyo.
In China manufacturing slowed downbut for less than expected. Both Purchasing Managers' Indices in Taiwan and South Korea also showed a contraction in manufacturing.
On Wednesday, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will travel to China in an effort to try to improve communications and icy ties between the world's two largest economies.
Investors are expecting more interest rate hikes this year in the US following repeated warnings by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell in speeches in Europe last week that inflation has yet to be brought under control.
US interest rates are now between 5% and 5.25%, the highest since 2006. The CME FedWatch tool predicts an 87.4% probability of a 25 basis point rate hike at the next Fed meeting on July 26 and predicts only a 12.6% probability. the Fed will leave rates unchanged.
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