Bitcoin maintains a 4-month high above $22,000, and the crypto market cap has risen above $1 trillion.

Post author By Kidist
Post date January 23, 2023

Bitcoin traded with little variation. Monday morning in Asia, the dollar was trading above a four-month high of US$22,000 as part of a broader rally over the weekend, aided by comments from a U.S. Federal Reserve official in support of a smaller interest rate increase at the central bank’s meeting at the end of this month. In a mixed morning for the top ten non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies, Ether was also little changed. Dogecoin led in gains, while Solana suffered the greatest loss.

Important Facts

Bitcoin fell 0.2% to US$22,722 in the 24 hours to 8 a.m. in Hong Kong, bringing the week’s gains to 8.8%. On Saturday morning, the world’s largest cryptocurrency hit a four-month high of US$23,278 and is now trading above where it was before the market-wide slump that followed the collapse of Bahamas-based crypto exchange FTX.com.

According to CoinMarketCap data, ether gained 0.1% to $1,628, representing a 4.9% weekly gain.

Dogecoin gained 4.2% to US$0.08, bringing its weekly gain to 2.5%. The world’s leading memecoin hit a five-week high of $0.09 overnight.

Solana fell 1.6% to US$24.24, but gained 5.9% in the previous week. The token’s gains over the weekend propelled it up several slots on CoinMarketCap’s list of the top cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, to number ten.

Over the last 24 hours, total crypto market capitalization fell 1.6% to US$1.03 trillion, while trading volume fell 16.1% to US$52.8 billion. On Saturday, the total crypto market cap reached $1.05 trillion, the highest since early November, just before the collapse of FTX.

On Friday, US equities rose. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1%, the S&P 500 Index rose 1.9%, and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 2.7% for a 0.6% weekly gain in its third straight week of gains.

The Nasdaq was helped by Netflix Inc.’s strong performance, which rose 8.5% to US$ 342.50 on the back of higher-than-expected subscriber numbers. Alphabet Inc., the parent company of search engine Google, rose 5.3% to US$98.02 after announcing the layoff of approximately 12,000 employees, or approximately 6% of its workforce.

In remarks prepared for delivery at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Friday, US Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said that based on recent economic data, he supports raising interest rates by only 25 basis points at the central bank’s next meeting.

The Fed raised interest rates by 50 basis points last month, to between 4.25% and 4.5%, the highest level in 15 years. The Fed is scheduled to meet again on January 31-February 1, with CME Group analysts predicting a 99.8% chance of a 25 basis point increase.

This week’s major earnings reports in the United States include Tesla, Microsoft, and Visa. Members of the Federal Reserve will be in a “blackout period” before meeting at the end of the month to decide on the next move in interest rates. Durable goods orders and consumer sentiment are two other US economic indicators due this week that could influence the decision.