Bitcoin fell back below US$17,000 in Friday morning trading in Asia. Ether and all other non-stablecoin top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization also lost ground. Dogecoin posted the biggest drop on the list, while Polkadot and Polygon both fell less than 2%.
Fast facts
- Bitcoin fell 1.2% to US$16,968, in the 24 hours to 8 a.m. in Hong Kong, while Ether lost 1.5% to US$1,276 according to CoinMarketCap.
- The total crypto market capitalization dropped 1.5% to US$583 billion, while trading volume over the 24 hours fell 17.4% to US$43.7 billion.
- Dogecoin dropped 4.8% to US$0.101. The meme coin is still up 24.8% for the past week on the back of speculation it may be incorporated into a payment system on Twitter after Elon Musk, a long-time fan of the token, bought the social media platform.
- BNB shed 2.8% to trade at US$292.25 and Litecoin dropped 2.2% to US$77.56.
- U.S. equities had a mixed day on Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.6% and the S&P 500 Index fell 0.1% while the Nasdaq Composite Index closed the day 0.1% higher.
- The U.S. Senate on Thursday afternoon approved a bill to force rail workers’ unions to accept a labor agreement to avert a potential railway strike over the holiday season, which has avoided what U.S. President Biden described as a potential “Christmas catastrophe.”
- Investors await the release of U.S. November employment data on Friday for signals on how the Federal Reserve’s months-long campaign to tackle inflation by raising interest rates is feeding into the economy.
- Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday the central bank may soon begin to taper the pace of interest rate rises. The Fed is expected to raise rates by 50-basis points at its next meeting on Dec. 13-14, down from the 75 basis-point hikes it has set in the previous four meetings.