Bitcoin, Ether continue slide; U.S. equities gain on consumer confidence boost

Bitcoin and Ether fell in Thursday morning trading in Asia, along with all other non-stablecoin top 10 cryptocurrencies. Polkadot led losses with a drop of more than 2%, with Cardano and BNB following close behind.

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Fast facts

• Bitcoin lost 0.5% to US$16,824 in the 24 hours to 8 a.m. in Hong Kong, while Ether fell 0.3% to trade at US$1,213, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Bitcoin has lost almost 5% in the past seven days, while Ether’s decline is closer to 6%.

• Polkadot fell 2.8% to US$4.48, while Cardano lost 2.2% to trade at US$0.25.

• BNB fell 2.2% to change hands at US$246.16. The token is still dogged by concerns about the reserves of the Binance exchange, its issuer, as clients pulled billions of dollars from the platform in the past week. The exchange also faces a possible U.S. legal investigation.

• The global crypto market cap rose 0.7% to US$808.1 billion in the past 24 hours, while total trading volume fell 30.5% to US$26.45 billion.

• U.S. equities ended the day higher on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.6% while the S&P 500 Index and the Nasdaq Composite Index both finished up 1.5%.

• The U.S. consumer confidence index rose to an eight-month high of 108.3 in December, according to data released Wednesday by the business think tank Conference Board. This reading beat the 101.4 recorded in November and the 101 expected by economists at business data analysis firm Refinitiv.

• Risk assets such as crypto and equities have been dragged lower this year as the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates to combat inflation, which has been running near forty-year highs. The Fed raised by the expected 50-basis points last week, bringing rates to between 4.25% and 4.5% — the highest level in 15 years. It also warned of more increases to come.

• The latest U.S. consumer price index showed that inflation was up 7.1% in November compared to last year, a decline from 7.7% in October and 8.2% in September.

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