Polygon drops 3%; Bitcoin, Ethereum & Solana fall 1% each

New Delhi: Crypto tokens saw some profit booking as traders tempered bets that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates by 100 basis points in an attempt to curb the rising prices.

Higher interest rates would make riskier assets like cryptocurrencies and stocks less attractive as investments. However, the top crypto token – Bitcoin – continued to trade above the $20,000 mark.

Barring XRP, all other top crypto tokens were trading higher on Friday but gains were capped. Ethereum, BNB, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu gained up to a per cent each.

The global cryptocurrency market cap was trading higher at the $927.24 billion mark, rising more than 3 per cent in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, the total cryptocurrency trading volume gained about 3 per cent to $76.70 billion.

Expert take
Bitcoin has bounced off the $20,000 level after bulls pushed the coin up, said Edul Patel, CEO and co-founder of Mudrex.

“Ethereum has outperformed Bitcoin by witnessing a 10 per cent rise in the past session following its Shadow Fork 9 going live ahead of the merge,” he added. “We may likely witness this trend for another 24 hours too.”

Global updates

• The cost to produce bitcoin (BTC) has fallen to about $13,000 from around $20,000 at the start of June as miners battle the bear market and efficiency in mining rises, according to investment bank JPMorgan.

• Plaid, an online platform that aggregates users’ financial information, said it is extending its reach to include accounts from cryptocurrency exchanges, starting with Finance.US, Kraken and Gemini.

• Circle Internet Financial released a detailed – though unaudited – breakdown of its reserve assets for the firm’s USD coin that showed $42.1 billion in short-term U.S. government bonds and $13.6 billion in cash.

• NFT marketplace OpenSea has laid off about 20% of its staff, CEO Devin Finzer announced in a tweet. OpenSea joins a number of crypto firms, many of the exchanges, that have laid off staff or paused hiring in recent months.

• Uniswap’s UNI surged nearly 20 per cent in the latest 24-hour period after broker Robinhood Markets added the token to its crypto trading platform.

• Bankrupt cryptocurrency lending platform Voyager Digital’s native coin voyager has more than tripled in three days. According to one observer, the move appears to be driven by a short squeeze.

• Physical futures crypto exchange CoinFLEX is now allowing customers to withdraw 10% of their account balances, excluding its flexUSD stablecoin.

• Web3 gaming company UnCaged Studios has raised $24 million in a Series A equity funding round, with participation from Griffin Gaming Partners, Vgames, Maverick Ventures Israel, Drive by DraftKings and 6th Man Ventures.

Tech view by BuyUcoin cryptocurrency exchange
Celsius (CEL) nosedived on bankruptcy news. CEL, the native token of troubled crypto lender Celsius, is down by 58%.

CEL had hit an all-time high of $8 in 2021 and is currently trading below the $1 mark. After the crypto lender announced a freeze on withdrawals, the sentiment around the token shifted to the negative side.

It is very difficult to predict if CEL will witness an upward trend shortly but the crypto community will closely watch the bankruptcy process to see if retail investors can secure their investments in Celsius. Investors should stay away from investing in a falling knife.

(Views and recommendations given in this section are the analysts’ own and do not represent those of ETMarkets.com. Please consult your financial adviser before taking any position in the asset/s mentioned.)