Bitcoin and Ether fell in Thursday morning trading in Asia along with all other top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, excluding stablecoins, as the U.S. Federal Reserve announced a fourth consecutive rate hike of 75 basis points on Wednesday. Leading memecoins Dogecoin and Shiba Inu token saw the heaviest losses after several days of significant gains following Elon Musk’s purchase of social media platform Twitter Inc.
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Fast facts
- Bitcoin fell 1.5% to US$20,147 in the 24 hours to 8 a.m. in Hong Kong, while Ether fell 3.8% to US$1,517, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Solana saw significant losses, falling 4.8% to US$30.71, while Cardano dropped 4% to US$0.38.
- Shiba Inu token fell 7.8% to US$0.00001176, though was still trading up 8.8% over the past seven days, while Dogecoin fell 9.4% to US$0.12, though it was still up over 70% in the past week. Since purchasing Twitter, Elon Musk has tweeted pictures of shiba inu dogs — the breed of dog the Doge meme is based on — and has floated the idea of integrating Dogecoin as a payment method on the platform.
- Sitting outside CoinMarketCap’s list, Litecoin gained 10.1% to change hands at US$60.52 after reaching a six-week high of US$62.12 overnight. This follows payment services company MoneyGram International, Inc. announcing it was integrating Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin trading on its app.
- U.S. equities closed down on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.5%, the S&P 500 Index closed 2.5% lower and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 3.4%.
- The Fed unanimously voted to raise its benchmark interest rate by 75 basis points in its November meeting on Wednesday, bringing the total rate to a 15-year high of 3.75% to 4%. In the press conference announcing the raise, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said it was “very premature to talk about a pause” in interest rate rises; however, he seemed to suggest a slowing from the current pace could be in store in the next few Federal Open Market Committee meetings.
- The Fed lifted interest rates from near zero in March to the current 3.25% as inflation reached a near 40-year high of 8.2% in September. The Fed has indicated it will continue this policy until inflation returns to a target range of 2%.
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