Cryptocurrencies extended gains early on Friday while stock market sentiment remained mixed, reflective of a widening correlation between stocks and crypto assets. Strong gains in Ethereum, ahead of the much-awaited transition to Proof of Stake, was the highlight of the rally.
Asian stocks mostly retreated while Wall Street futures are in positive territory. European stocks are trading with strong gains.
Fears of the Fed aggressively hiking interest rates to tame inflation had dampened sentiment across financial markets worldwide post the release of the high inflation readings for the month of June.
Crypto markets however rebounded quickly, with market cap now at $933 billion, versus the $851 billion level touched in the aftermath of the CPI data release.
The Dollar’s remarkable strength, manifested in the Dollar Index’s recent high of 109.29 has not deterred the crypto rally, which has recorded a surge of close to 6 percent in the past 24 hours.
Among the top 100 cryptos, more than 90 percent have recorded overnight gains whereas around 30 percent are positive on a weekly basis. One cryptocurrency is trading with gains on a year-to-date basis.
Bitcoin is trading at $20,830.77, having gained 5.4 percent in the past 24 hours. BTC traded between a high of $20,981.99 and low of $19,689.26 in the past 24 hours.
Ethereum is trading more than 12 percent higher overnight, but is still making 0.8 percent loss on a weekly basis. ETH ranged between $1,225.06 and $1,078.10 in the past 24 hours.
Ethereum’s spectacular 12 percent rally comes amidst the announcement that The Merge, which would transition Ethereum from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake is scheduled for the middle of September. The upgrade is expected to increase the network’s scalability as well as reduce the carbon footprint.
Ether’s gains have lifted the Smart Contracts category around 9.7 percent in the past 24 hours. Also aiding the surge was the 10 percent gain in Avalanche (AVAX). BNB(BNB) and Cardano (ADA) registered gains of close to 4 percent overnight. Market capitalization of the Smart Contracts category is at $230 billion, implying a dominance of 24.6 percent.
Stablecoin category dominance dropped to 16.4 percent, versus 17.3 percent a day earlier, amidst an increasing risk-on sentiment and price momentum. Tether’s (USDT) crypto market dominance stood at 7.06 percent, closely followed by USDCoin (USDC) at 5.92 percent.
Centralized Exchange category cryptocurrencies which currently account for 5.8 percent of the overall crypto market, gained 3.6 percent in the past 24 hours. Losses in UNUS SED LEO (LEO) eclipsed the gains in BNB (BNB), FTX Token (FTT) and Cronos (CRO), causing the category market cap to surge less than the broader market.
The DeFi category strengthened 6.5 percent in the past 24 hours to a market cap of $51 billion and dominance of 5.5 percent. 15th ranked Avalanche (AVAX) gained more than 10 percent whereas 17th ranked Uniswap (UNI) rallied 11 percent.
The total value locked (TVL), the overall value of crypto assets deposited in all of the functions that DeFi protocols offer, including staking, lending and liquidity pools is currently at $84.7 billion, gaining 3.76 percent overnight.
The overnight gains in other major categories are Web 3 (6.3%), Research (4.6%), NFT (6.1%), DAO (9.9%), Memes (5.9%), Decentralized Exchange (7.9%), Governance (9.3%), Metaverse (5.9%), and Gaming (6.2%).
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