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Bitcoin bounced back above US$28,000 during Monday morning trading in Asia, leading a rally among all of the top 10 unstable cryptocurrencies. Ethereum broke through the USD 1,900 resistance ceiling. The gain followed an agreement in principle between US President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy to raise the country’s debt ceiling, boosting investor appetite for risky assets.
cryptocurrency
Bitcoin rose 3.98% over the past 24 hours to US$28,195 at 9:30am in Hong Kong. It registered a weekly gain of 5.73%, according to data from CoinMarketCap. The world’s largest cryptocurrency rose above $28,000 for the first time since May 10.
Ether is up 3.48% in the past 24 hours to $1,916, up 6.53% over the past seven days. It traded above US$1,900 for the first time in three weeks.
Cryptocurrency prices received a boost after US President Biden said on Saturday that he had reached an agreement in principle with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to raise the government’s debt ceiling, averting the threat of bankruptcy in the world’s largest economy. If ratified, the agreement will run until January 1, 2025.
Both sides are now urging Congress to approve the deal before June 5 — the deadline set by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The talks had left investors agitated for weeks as a US default could have sparked panic in global markets.
Investors’ sense of relief that a deal is about to close has led to “new purchases of high-risk assets,” Markus Thielen, head of Crypto Research & Strategy at digital asset services platform Matrixport, said in a note shared with Fork.
“So many investors were afraid of the debt ceiling and possible bankruptcy of the US government – which is so unlikely. Now they have to find something else to be bearish about while the market is likely to pick up again,” Thielen said.
With Bitcoin taking the lead, all other top 10 unstable cryptocurrencies traded higher in the past 24 hours. The total market capitalization for cryptocurrencies increased by 3.00% to US$1.17 trillion during that period. The 24-hour trading volume also rose 57.01% to US$31.73 billion.
Neo, the token that powers the China-affiliated Neo blockchain, saw the biggest weekly gains among the top 100 cryptocurrencies. It rose 23.83% to $11.37. Neo is backed by Onchain, a Chinese blockchain company and member of the country’s internet finance lobby.
Neo outperformed most other larger-capitalization cryptocurrencies over the past week, with investors now “positioning themselves for the opening event in Hong Kong,” according to Matrixport’s Thielen.
Hong Kong will unlock trading for retail investors from June 1 as the city aims to become a hub for the crypto industry.
Bitcoin NFT sales increase
The indices are proxy measures of the performance of the global NFT market. They are operated by CryptoSlam, a sister company of Forkast.News under the umbrella of Forkast.Labs.
In the non-fungible token (NFT) market, the Forkast 500 NFT index rose 0.57% to 3,373.39 in the 24 hours to 11:20 a.m. in Hong Kong, but is still up 0 over the past seven days .82% down.
NFT sales on Ethereum fell 8.07% in the past 24 hours to US$13.10 million, according to data from CryptoSlam. In contrast, NFT sales on the Bitcoin network rose 95.50% to US$8.29 million.
$OXBT BRC-20 NFTs, a Bitcoin NFT collection launched last Thursday, saw sales exceed US$3 million in the past 24 hours, or more than 35% of all NFT sales on the Bitcoin blockchain. The collection has attracted more than 34,000 owners in four days.
Data from CryptoSlam indicates a meteoric rise of Bitcoin in the NFT space, said Yohann Calpu, Chief Marketing Officer at Fort Labs.
“I’ve never seen an ecosystem start up that fast, except for NFTs in 2020-2021, and I’d say it’s even faster this time around,” Calpu said. He added that the Ethereum and Bitcoin networks are vying for NFT supremacy, with the Bitcoin protocol potentially better suited to NFT projects “that see immutability and scarcity as attributes rather than weaknesses.”
Peter Schiff, Euro Pacific Capital Chief Economist and Vocal Bitcoin Critic, said on Saturday, he had collaborated on an art project to launch 50 Ordinal Inscriptions — the iteration of NFTs of the Bitcoin blockchain — on the Bitcoin blockchain, which will be open for bidding at auction in early June.
“It makes me happy to see Peter Schiff converted,” tweeted Binance Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao on Sunday.
Elsewhere, Our Force 1, the NFT sneaker collection launched last Wednesday by sportswear giant Nike, has surpassed 75,000 in five days to around US$1.48 million, making each NFT sneaker a price of US$19.82, according to data from PolygonScan.
