Bitcoin slips, Ether inches above US$2,100

Bitcoin dropped on Tuesday afternoon in Asia but remained above US$29,000, while Ether and most top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies gained. Dogecoin and Solana fell on the day but rose on the week. Renewed regulatory concerns hit crypto market sentiment after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged crypto exchange Bittrex for breaching securities laws. Other crypto firms including Kraken, Coinbase, Paxos and Binance have also been targeted by U.S. regulators this year. Most Asian equity markets fell on Tuesday, except China and Japan.

See related article: Bank of England says stablecoins need limits on use to prevent financial instability

Fast facts

• Bitcoin fell 0.23% to US$29,787 in 24 hours to 4 p.m. in Hong Kong, according to CoinMarketCap. The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization gained 1.13% on the week.
• Ethereum rose 0.48% to US$2,101, bringing its weekly gains to 9.26%, after a blockchain upgrade last week to enable the withdrawal of staked Ether. 
• Dogecoin and Solana dropped on the day. Solana fell 0.3% to US$25.08 after gaining 11.57% in the last seven days. Memecoin Dogecoin lost 0.02% to US$0.0929, but strengthened 8.72% on the week. 
• Litecoin gained the most among the top 10 non-stablecoin cryptos, climbing 2.74% to US$101.71, after rising 5.34% in the last seven days. Polkadot was the second-biggest gainer, rising 1.68% on the day to US$6.83 and 6.03% on the week.
• Total crypto market capitalization gained 0.17% to US$1.27 trillion, while crypto market volume rose 5.86% to US$44.46 billion in the last 24 hours. 
• The Forkast 500 NFT index rose 0.64% on the day to 4,079.25 points and gained 3.57% on the week. The index is a proxy measure of the performance of the global NFT market and includes 500 eligible smart contracts on any given day.
• Asian equity markets mostly fell on Tuesday except China and Japan, after China posted first-quarter gross domestic product growth of 4.5% on the year, higher than market estimates of 4%. The Shanghai Composite rose 0.23% and the Shenzhen Component Index gained 0.04%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 strengthened 0.51% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index lost 0.63%. 
• U.S. stock futures gained as of 6.30 p.m. in Hong Kong. The Dow Jones Futures rose 0.29%, S&P 500 Futures inched up 0.37%, and the Nasdaq 100 Futures gained 0.62%.
• The U.S. dollar fell 0.2% to 101.69 points during the day, after a two-day winning streak. The euro rose 0.44% to US$1.09, as investors expect another rate hike from the European Central Bank in May.
• “Central banks have probably already done enough to lower inflation in the near-term, but there has been a regime shift in the trade-off between growth and inflation,” said Azad Zangana, Senior European Economist and Strategist at Schroders. 
• “The global economy is likely to continue to face cyclical inflation and ongoing labor shortages, pushing labor costs higher. The global economy must also learn to cope with rising structural inflation associated with political fragmentation and the response to the new world order,” Zangana added.
• European bourses rose to a year-high on Tuesday, as the benchmark STOXX 600 inched up 0.23% and Germany’s DAX 40 rose 0.5%, as the prospect of global economic recovery received a boost from China’s better-than-expected first-quarter growth.
• Gold inched up 0.39% to steady around US$2,002 an ounce, after losing over 2% of its value in the past 2 days.
• See related article: Kraken to withdraw US$1.17 bln of staked Ether in line with SEC ruling, settlement