Markets: Bitcoin dips back below US$17,000, Ether falls, Dogecoin leads losers list
News Team
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.
