Cryptocurrencies rise as Cardano’s Vasil hard fork occurs, with XRP leading gains

As Cardano reported a successful hard fork to its updated Vasil network, Bitcoin rose back above US$19,000 in early Friday Asian trading. Among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, XRP had the most growth.

According to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin increased 4.2% in the last day to trade at US$19,307 at 10:30 a.m. in Hong Kong. Ethereum increased by 5.6% to trade at US$1,327, bringing the seven-day drop to 9.6%.

Cardano’s token, ADA, increased after Input Output Hong Kong announced that the Cardano blockchain had successfully undergone a hard fork as part of the Vasil upgrade early this morning. This action is meant to increase scalability and efficiency. ADA increased 4.2% to $0.46.

Following the approval of another motion that established December 9 as the deadline for parties to file petitions to seal evidence in the case, XRP outperformed all other cryptocurrencies, increasing over 20% to trade at US$0.49.

With regard to market capitalization, XRP has surpassed Binance’s USD stablecoin thanks to recent gains. BNB was trading 3.5% higher.

A day after the U.S. Fed announced interest rates on Thursday morning, Hong Kong time, the cryptocurrency markets saw gains in contrast to drops in the major US equity indices as the agency hinted at more aggressive monetary tightening into 2023.

Overnight, the Nasdaq Composite Index lost 1.4%, the S&P 500 Index finished 0.8% lower, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.4%.