Bitcoin, Ether slip, top cryptos mixed, XRP biggest gainer after last week’s court win
Bitcoin and ether were down modestly during Monday afternoon’s trading in Hong Kong, while all other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market cap were mixed. XRP continued its rally after XRP issuer Ripple returned a favorable ruling in its lawsuit before the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week. Investors were also bullish after the SEC accepted BlackRock’s Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) filings for consideration.
See related article: Weekly Market Report: Bitcoin breaks $31,195 after Fidelity’s spot bitcoin ETF filing
Bitcoin and Ether slide but remain above key levels, XRP leads gains
Bitcoin was little changed during the Asian trading day, trading at $30,321 in Hong Kong as of 4:30 p.m.
Ether is marginally down 0.15% during afternoon trade in Asia to trade at $1,931. It has been above $1,900 since Thursday.
XRP token was the day’s biggest gainer, up 4.22% to $0.7483. The token surged 59.67% for the week after U.S. District Court Judge Analisa Torres ruled Thursday that Ripple Labs’ programmatic sales of XRP cryptocurrency do not qualify as financial securities.
Adding to positive investor sentiment, the SEC has accepted for consideration asset manager BlackRock’s application for a spot Bitcoin ETF. This signals the SEC’s intent to seriously review the ETF filing.
“An approved ETF could be the catalyst that offers institutional investors an efficient and regulated way to gain exposure to Bitcoin. Such an approval could potentially lead to significant inflows of institutional capital into the market, increasing liquidity and driving up prices,” said Lucas Kiely, chief investment officer of digital asset platform Yield App forcast.
“It would signal mature and mainstream adoption of Bitcoin and inspire confidence among both retail and institutional investors.” It would remove some of the perceived barriers to entry and make it easier for individuals and institutions to participate in the market.”
According to data from CoinMarketCap, over the past 24 hours, the total crypto market cap increased by 0.10% to $1.21 trillion and the market volume increased by 3.97% to $25.93 billion.
Bitcoin NFT Sales Rise, Ethereum NFT Sales Lose Momentum
The Forkast 500 NFT index rose 0.25% to 2,729.89 points in the 24 hours to 4:30 p.m. in Hong Kong but fell 0.48% over the week.
24-hour sales of non-fungible bitcoin tokens rose 73.17% to $1.59 million, while sales for uncategorized ordinals rose 99.29% to $627,110.
Ethereum 24-hour NFT sales are down 13.67% to $11.6 million, while sales for the largest Ethereum-native NFT collection, Bored Ape Yacht Club, are down 1.05% increased to $706,564 million. Last Friday, Yuga Labs, the company behind The Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection, announced that it will host ApeFest, an event celebrating the company’s NFT collections, in Hong Kong in early November.
On Ethereum, Captainz collection sales also increased by 19.36% to $548,312.
“NFTs continue to ride the wave of positive news and prices in the crypto space. However, we are not seeing any significant increases in projects and instead most of the big names are still down over the past seven days,” said Yehudah Petscher, NFT strategist at Forkast Labs, Forkast.News’ parent company.
“Traders lack liquidity and when we see volume it often goes hand in hand with falling prices.”
Among Forkast Labs’ NFT indices, the only one down was Forkast ETH NFT Composite, falling 0.13% to 928.58 points.
Asian stocks and US stock futures fall
Major Asian stocks were down as of 4:30 pm in Hong Kong, with Japan’s Nikkei 225, Shenzhen Component Index and Shanghai Composite all posting declines.
Hong Kong markets suspended trading in both the securities and derivatives markets on Monday due to a warning about Typhoon Talim. Although the storm didn’t cause any major damage, authorities warned that flooding could occur.
Investor sentiment turned negative after data showed that China’s economy grew 6.3% in the second quarter, below expectations of 7.3% expansion. Retail sales also missed preliminary forecasts. Investors are hoping for more stimulus measures from Beijing to help the mainland’s post-pandemic recovery.
US stock futures also fell during Monday afternoon trade in Hong Kong, with the S&P 500 futures index, tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures all weakening.
This week, investors are awaiting earnings reports from major banks like Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Companies like Tesla, Netflix and United Airlines are also releasing their earnings reports.
See related article: EU publishes draft law for digital euro and cash payments
Updates with stock section
