Bitcoin fell along with Ether and all 10 other leading non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies during morning trading on Tuesday in Asia, erasing most of Monday’s gains. Cryptocurrencies followed overnight declines in U.S. stock markets as traders appeared to be taking profits ahead of this week’s Federal Reserve rate meeting and a slew of tech earnings. Solana led the losers. Dogecoin pared its losses based on the report. The head of Twitter Inc. Elon Musk wants to add payment systems to the social media platform and he is a known fan of tokens.
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Fast facts
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Bitcoin fell 3.9% to US$22,836 in the 24 hours to 8am in Hong Kong, paring its losses over the past seven days to 0.6%. Ether fell 4.8% to US$1,566 on Tuesday morning, and is down 3.8% for the week, according to CoinMarketCap.
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Solana lost 8.1% to change hands at $23.91, down 1.8% for the week after the token posted the biggest gains on CoinMarketCap’s top 10 list on Monday.
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Cardano fell 6.3% to $0.37, a seven-day loss of 1%. Polygon fell 7.5% to US$1.09, but was still trading up 9% since last Tuesday.
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Leading memecoin Dogecoin fell 1.5% to $0.08, keeping its losses at 1% for the week. On Monday, the Financial Times reported that Musk, the world’s second-richest person, is exploring adding payment systems to Twitter that could include crypto. Musk is a longtime advocate of Dogecoin.
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US stocks fell on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.8%, and the S&P 500 Index fell 1.3%. The Nasdaq Composite fell 2%, its worst trading day in five weeks.
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The Fed meets from January 31 to February 1 and is expected to raise interest rates by a modest 25 basis points, ending a streak of 50 or 75 basis point hikes since last March in an attempt to slow the pace of inflation. A decision on the rate is expected on Wednesday.
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The Fed’s aggressive rate hikes last year appear to be having the desired effect on inflation. In December, the US consumer price index rose 6.5% on an annual basis, well below the 7.1% recorded in November and the largest monthly decline since April 2020.
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Investors are also bracing for earnings announcements from technology leaders this week, including Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc., the parent company of the Google search engine. Data on wages for non-agricultural activities, which is another key indicator of inflation, was also published on Friday.
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