Bitcoin back above US$20,000, Ether rallies, Solana leads gains in Top 10

Bitcoin and Ether rallied in late Friday afternoon trading in Asia, helping drive up the global cryptocurrency market capitalization more than 5% to back above the US$1 trillion mark.  Solana led the gains among tokens in CoinMarketCap’s top 10 by market capitalization. 

See related article: Markets: Bitcoin, Ether little changed; Polkadot leaps Dogecoin into crypto top ten

Fast facts

• Bitcoin rose over 7.5% in the past 24 hours to trade at US$20,633 at 4 p.m. in Hong Kong, while Etherium gained 5.7% to US$1,704, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Solana jumped 9.4% on the day and 11.7% for the week. 

• Smaller tokens such as Ravencoin, OKB, and Ape Coin all gained more than 15%. Ravencoin, which was listed by the crypto exchange KuCoin on 30 August, led the pack, rising 23.2%. 

• Terra Classic (LUNC), the original network of the Terra/Luna stablecoin, lost 2.8%, cooling off from a near 100% rebound over the past week. The price surge was bolstered by a Luna airdrop promotion and Binance announcing a tax burn on the Terra Classic network. 

• Asian equity indices moved higher, with the Hong Kong Hang Seng index rising 2.9% following gains on Wall Street overnight. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index closed up 0.5%, and the Shanghai Composite index rose 0.8%. 

• Next week, investors will be watching the release of the August U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Tuesday – a key indicator for the US Federal Reserve in assessing how its interest-rate increases this year are combating inflation and a factor for further hikes. 

• In tandem with the CPI release, the long-awaited Ethereum network merge is expected to be completed sometime between September 13 and 15 and both will drive market sentiment, said Bobby Ong, the chief operating officer and co-founder of crypto data aggregator CoinGecko.

• “The CPI data, coinciding with the Merge, both these events will have a significant impact on cryptocurrency market movements in the next few days and weeks,” said Ong. 

See related article: Markets: Bitcoin, Ethereum hold gains, Terra Classic soars on Luna airdrop