Markets: Bitcoin bounces back above US$21,000, Cardano gains

Bitcoin and Ether rebounded Friday morning in Asia along with all of the top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies. Cardano and Ripple led the gains. Investors seemed to see lower-price opportunities in the declines on Thursday when weak retail data renewed concerns about a recession in the U.S., mixed in with hawkish comments from the Federal Reserve and the possibility of more bankruptcies in the industry amid the woes of Digital Currency Group.

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Fast facts

• Bitcoin gained 1.93% to US$21,085 over the last 24 hours to 8 a.m. in Hong Kong, adding up to an 11.74% week-to-date increase. Ether rose 2.44% to US$1,552, a 9.5% gain over the past week.
• XRP, the token for the Ripple payment network, rose 3.78% to US$0.3938, leading the gains among the top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Brad Garlinghouse, the chief executive officer of Ripple Labs, told CNBC on Wednesday in Davos, Switzerland, that its legal dispute with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will end in “single digit months.”
• Cardano’s ADA token jumped 3.66% to US$0.3388. Early on Friday, Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson expressed an interest in buying Digital Currency Group-owned crypto media outlet CoinDesk in a Youtube livestream, amid reports CoinDesk is exploring a sale.
• Crypto venture capital firm Digital Currency Group (DCG) has been experiencing financial distress, with its brokerage arm Genesis Global Capital reportedly considering to file for bankruptcy following its exposure to the FTX.com collapse. DCG also halted quarterly dividend payments, according to Bloomberg.
• The total crypto market capitalization over the 24 hours grew 1.21% to US$979.67 billion, while trading volume fell 33% to US$41.05 billion.
• U.S. equities dipped Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 Index both losing 0.76%. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell by 0.96%.
• Stock prices remained softer after the U.S. Commerce Department on Wednesday said retail sales fell 1.1% in December, matching the largest drop in a year, and surpassing the 0.8% decline economists had predicted, adding to recession worries. St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard fueled these concerns, saying the same day the Fed should not “stall” efforts to raise interest rates above 5%.
• Last month, the Fed raised interest rates by 50-basis points to between 4.25% and 4.5%, the highest in 15 years. The next Fed meeting is Jan. 31 to Feb. 1, with analysts at the CME Group predicting a 94.2% chance of an increase of 25 basis points.

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