Bitcoin and Ether gained in Monday afternoon trading in Asia, along with all other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies. Solana posted the biggest gain among the top 10, followed by Polygon and Shiba Inu.
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Fast facts
- Bitcoin traded 1.87% higher to US$21,121 in the past 24 hours to 4 p.m. in Hong Kong, a 22.72% rise over the past calendar week, according to CoinMarketCap data. Bitcoin briefly rose to US$21,345 in the morning. Ether gained 2.52% to US$1,566, up 19.46% over the past seven days.
- Solana rose 8% to US$24.27, with a 48% week-to-date gain. Solana has surged over 140% since the new year following the launch of Bonk, a Solana-focused dog-themed memecoin. Bonk aims to support the Solana community to rebound from its involvement with FTX and Alameda Research, Bybit explained.
- Polygon’s MATIC traded 4.91% higher to US$1.02, strengthening 18.46% over the past week.
- On Jan. 6, it was reported that Polygon had paid popular non-fungible token (NFT) projects Y00ts and DeGods to migrate to the Polygon blockchain from Solana. The same day, Polygon announced that Mastercard is launching a new program on Polygon that will help musical artists utilize blockchain technology.
- Shiba Inu also traded 5.95% higher, in a week-long price growth of 21.87%.
- Asia equity markets were mixed on Monday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index closed 0.11% lower, and the Shanghai Composite Index added 1.01%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 went down by 1.14%.
- The December CPI reading in the U.S. fell from November’s 7.1% and marked the smallest annual increase since October 2021. While the key inflation indicator points to easing of U.S. inflation, Fed Chair Jerome Powell has warned of more rate increases in 2023, with the next Federal Reserve meeting to be held from Jan. 31 to Feb. 1.
- China’s exports fell by 9.9% in December from a year ago, while imports fell by 7.5%, with both data coming in slightly better than Reuters’ poll, according to the country’s customs data released Friday.
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