Bitcoin bounces back to USD 28,000, Ether wins

by James · April 25, 2023

Bitcoin rose in Wednesday morning trade in Asia to regain the USD 28,000 mark. Ether and all other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies moved higher, but not enough to recoup the losses of the past seven days. Litecoin led the gainers for the second day amid optimism about the token’s next halving event, even though it is more than three months away. Concerns about the banking system resurfaced in the US on Tuesday, potentially boosting crypto prices. US stock futures rose in Asia after Microsoft and Alphabet beat earnings expectations.

See related article: CoinShares says weekly investment in Ethereum-related products reverses after hard fork

Fast facts

Bitcoin retreated 3.13% to $28,319 in the 24 hours to 09:00 a.m. in Hong Kong, according to CoinMarketCap data. The world’s largest cryptocurrency moved back above the US$28,000 line for the first time since Friday, but is still down 6.62% over the past seven days.
Ether rose 1.45% to $1,867. Crypto investment firm CoinShares said Ethereum-linked investment products had net inflows of around $17 million in the week ended April 21, up from $300,000 the previous week, suggesting confidence in the token’s prospects following the Ethereum blockchain’s Shanghai upgrade . But like Bitcoin, it is still down for the past week, down 10.99%.
Litecoin led Wednesday’s gainers, rising 3.40% to $90.98. Some investors seem to be positioning themselves ahead of the token’s third halving event set to take place on August 2, 2023, which will reduce the supply of the token. But again, the gains so far this week haven’t offset the 10.38% drop over the seven days.
BNB, the token that powers the world’s largest crypto exchange Binance, rose 2.19% to $338.34. However, gains were overshadowed by Binance.US backing out of a $1 billion deal to buy bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital, citing hostile regulators in the country. The committee of unsecured Voyager creditors said it is “investigating potential claims against Binance.US” following the withdrawal.
The total crypto market capitalization rose 2.41% in the last 24 hours to $1.19 trillion. The total trading volume in the last 24 hours increased by 5.13% to 40.38 billion USD.
In the non-fungible token (NFT) market, the Forkast 500 NFT Index fell 0.80% to 3,726.74 in the 24 hours to 9:00 AM in Hong Kong, down 8.36% for the week. The index is a proxy measure of the performance of the global NFT market and includes 500 eligible smart contracts on a given day. It is managed by CryptoSlam, a sister company of Forkast.News under the Forkast.Labs umbrella.
U.S. stock futures were trading higher as of 9 a.m. in Hong Kong. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 0.18 percent. The S&P 500 rose 0.50% and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 1.35%.
The three indexes fell in regular Tuesday trading on Wall Street as concerns about bank solvency returned. First Republic Bank shares fell nearly 50% after it reported a 40.8% drop in deposits since the beginning of the year. This follows the trio of bank failures in the US in March and comes despite the $30 billion infusion into First Republic last month.
“Concerns about the US banking sector could return with some banks disclosing billions in lost deposits and could benefit bitcoin if capital flight exposes more banks,” according to Daniel Takieddine, CEO of Middle East and North Africa brokerage BDSwiss.
On the economic front, surveys released on Monday by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago indicated a slowdown in manufacturing and a potential recession ahead.
Amid this economic and banking gloom, US tech giants Microsoft and Alphabet reported earnings after the market closed that beat analysts’ expectations, adding some optimism to after-hours trading, according to CNBC.
On the inflation front, investors have US first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) on Thursday and personal consumption expenditures on Friday. Both figures will be sliced and diced to look at the broader outlook for the US economy and the Federal Reserve’s possible next move on interest rates.
US interest rates are currently between 4.75% and 5%, the highest since June 2006. Analysts at CME Group now expect a 24.2% chance that the Fed will leave rates unchanged at its next meeting on May 3, while 75 .8% predict a 25 basis point increase, down from 84% on Tuesday.