In Monday’s trading in Asia, Bitcoin and Ether rose with the top ten non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. BNB and Cardano changed the most. Following the latest U.S. jobs report, many cryptocurrencies have risen in value recently, which sparked a Wall Street rally last Friday. Bitcoin rose 1% to US$17,117 in Hong Kong, breaking the US$17,000 barrier for the first time since late December, representing a 2.9% weekly increase. Ether gained 1.9% to US$1,287, representing a 7.3% weekly gain.
Cardano rose 7.3% to US$0.29, a gain of 18.8% from the previous week. This price surge follows the cryptocurrency Cardano (ADA) becoming the tenth most used cryptocurrency for payment, which coincides with ADA breaking into the top ten most used cryptocurrencies for payment.
BNB gained 5.3% to US$274.77 in the last seven days, rising 12.5%. Polygon’s MATIC increased 4.1% to $0.84, bringing its weekly gains to 10.5%.
The total cryptocurrency market capitalization was US$830.4B, up 0.8% from the previous 24 hours. Meanwhile, the total trading volume was US$20.4B, up 14.7%. The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) currently has BTC assets under management in excess of $10 billion. Its share price, trades at an implied 44% discount to the Bitcoin spot price.
Ethereum
Ethereum (ETH 4.72%) is the second most valuable cryptocurrency. 2022 was a relative success after successfully implementing The Merge in the fall, transitioning the blockchain from a proof-of-work consensus mechanism to the more energy-efficient proof of stake, despite its price dropping nearly 60%.
However, there could be more in store for 2023. Ethereum’s developers have released the road map for the coming year, which is jam-packed with updates.
The Shanghai update, which is set to go live in March, will accomplish a few things, the most important of which is that it will allow those who staked their Ethereum on the new blockchain (which eventually merged with the old blockchain) to withdraw their funds.
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