Bitcoin fell, but traded back above the US$19,000 support level in Friday morning trading in Asia. Ether lost ground along with most other top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, excluding stablecoins, but leading memecoin Dogecoin rose and Tron also edged higher.
Fast facts
- Bitcoin dropped 0.5% in the past 24 hours to trade at US$19,048 as of 8 a.m. in Hong Kong, while Ether fell 0.2%% to US$1,282, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Bitcoin’s price has fluctuated around US$19,000 for the better part of a month and its 30-day price volatility is at the lowest level in almost two years at 31%, according to analytics firm IntoTheBlock.
- Polygon posted the biggest losses on the top 10 list, after a strong run of gains in the week off the back of high adoption figures on the network for the year. The token fell 5.38% to US$0.80, but is still up 3.8% over the past seven days.
- Dogecoin rose 1.4% to US$0.059, while Tron added 0.7% to US$0.62. Cardano and Solana both fell 2.8%, with Cardano at US$0.34 and Solana changing hands at US$28.08.
- The governance token of leading play-and-earn game Axie Infinity, AXS, fell 5.8% in the past 24 hours, and 13.9% in the past seven days, to US$9.57 on reports 8% of the token’s supply, or 21.543 million coins, will be unlocked on Oct. 25. Axie Infinity launched last year to become the first major blockchain game, allowing players to earn income by playing the game. However, as user growth slowed, so did the income.
- U.S. equities closed lower on Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3%, the S&P 500 Index dropped 0.8% and the Nasdaq Composite Index finished the day down 0.6%. This followed a Thursday report by financial services company Freddie Mac showing interest rate increases by the U.S. Federal Reserve this year has pumped up the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage to 6.94%, the highest since April 2002 and more than double the 3.09% last year.
- The Fed has raised interest rates from near zero in March this year to a range of 3% and 3.25%. It has committed to bringing inflation down to a target range of 2% from its current pace of 8.2%. The Fed is expected to raise interest rates by a further 75 basis points at its next general meeting in November.