Bitcoin flat, Ether gains in mixed crypto market; Solana rebounds, Litecoin leads winners

Bitcoin traded little changed and Ether gained on Monday morning in Asia, with prices of most other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies mixed. Solana added to gains after a slump that followed it being labeled a security by the U.S. financial regulator. Litecoin led winners, still riding the optimism of being included in the tokens trading on the Wall Street-backed EDX Markets exchange that opened on June 20.

Mixed crypto

Bitcoin added 0.41% to US$30,730.25 over the last 24 hours to 6:30 a.m. in Hong Kong, according to CoinMarketCap data. After a jump that followed a raft of Bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) applications in the final weeks of June, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has lost direction, adding just 0.61% over the past seven days.

The U.S. regulator that approves ETFs, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), on Friday indicated it was unimpressed by the Bitcoin ETF applications by financial heavyweights such as Blackrock and Fidelity Investments, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

Ether, the world’s second biggest token by market capitalization, added 1.49% to US$1,954.67.  It’s gained 2.65% for the seven days.

Solana was among the gainers in mixed early Asia trading for other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. The token rose 5.48% to US$19.43 for a weekly gain of 14.47%.

Solana is rallying after a raft of bearish indicators last week, with Solana-based non-fungible token (NFT) protocol Cardinal saying it was shutting down, citing “macroeconomic challenges.” The Revolut neobank and crypto exchange also reportedly told U.S.-based users last Wednesday that it will delist Solana, along with Cardano and Polygon.

The three tokens were among cryptocurrencies that the SEC named as illegally issued financial securities in its lawsuit filed last month against the Coinbase and Binance.US exchanges.

Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum wrote on Twitter on Friday that the tokens don’t deserve to be targeted.  “If ethereum ends up “winning” through all other blockchains getting kicked off exchanges, that’s not an honorable way to win, and in the long term probably isn’t even a victory.”

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Litecoin led the gainers with a 6.37% increase in the last 24 hours to US$112.96. The token surged 27.98% in the past seven days.

Litecoin, which was created in 2011 as a hard fork to Bitcoin, was one of the four tokens selected to trade on the EDX Markets exchange, which is backed by Citadel Securities and Fidelity Investments. The other tokens are Bitcoin, Ether and Bitcoin Cash. The New Jersey-based EDX opened for business despite the crackdown on crypto from U.S. regulators.

The California-based crypto exchange Kraken was ordered by a U.S. judge on Friday to submit information about its users to the Internal Revenue Service in an investigation of underreported tax liabilities. The crypto exchange was fined US$30 million in February by the SEC for its staking services, which the federal agency said were an offering of unregistered securities.

Other crypto movers included Tron, which dipped 1.85% to US$0.07572, but gained 3.31% for the week. Binance’s BNB token edged down 0.31% to US$247.13, and Cardano’s ADA fell 0.13% to US$0.2905.

The total cryptocurrency market cap edged up 0.02% to US$1.2 trillion, with trading volume dropping 7.54% to US$27.26 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data.