Amid worldwide fund infusions to support banks, Bitcoin, Ether, and other cryptocurrencies increase in value alongside stocks

Friday early trading in Asia saw bitcoin rise to almost US$25,000. As global stock markets stabilized as a result of actions taken by authorities in the U.S. and Europe to backstop banks with cash after a series of failures in the industry this past week threatened to spread, Ether and the other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies saw gains as well. As a U.S. judge overruled government objections and authorized the Binance US$1 billion deal to acquire insolvent crypto lender Voyager, BNB led the cryptocurrency winners.

Quick Facts

According to statistics from CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin increased 2.75% in the last day to reach US$24,973 at 9:00 a.m. in Hong Kong. The greatest gain among the top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization was recorded by the largest cryptocurrency in the world, which increased by 24% over the previous seven days. Bitcoin, according to some pundits, served as a secure haven for investors this week as bank failures shook the world’s equity markets.

In the last seven days, ether has risen 17%, edging up 1.32% to trade at US$1,668.

Binance’s native token, BNB, which saw a 7.56% increase to US$327.98 on Friday, topped the winners. On Wednesday, a U.S. court magistrate denied the government’s request to stop Binance U.S. from offering $1 billion to purchase the assets of the defunct Voyager platform. For the seven-day span, the token increased by 19.51%.

The Matic token from Polygon increased 2.88% to US$1.14, posting a monthly gain of 14.04%. Salesforce, one of the largest enterprise software companies in the world with a market cap of more than US$150 billion, has partnered with Polygon blockchain to assist its customers in developing non-fungible token-related (NFT) programs, according to a tweet from Polygon Labs on Thursday. For Web3 developers, Saleforce had earlier released a set of customer relationship management tools.

In the previous day, the overall market value of cryptocurrencies increased by 1.91% to US$1.08 trillion. Over the previous 24 hours, the total trading amount decreased 25.30% to US$61.92 billion.

In a rally for relief, U.S. stocks ended the day stronger on Thursday. The S&P 500 increased by 1.76%, the Nasdaq Composite Index increased by 2.48%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased by 1.17%.

Gains in stocks followed Credit Suisse’s announcement on Thursday that it would draw up to $50 billion (US$54 billion) from the Swiss National Bank to support liquidity. On the American side, First Republic Bank received a $30 billion injection from 11 U.S. financial organizations on Thursday after the bank’s stock price dropped precipitously due to run-on-the-bank concerns.

The U.S. “banking system remains sound,” according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who also stated that “the Federal Reserve is providing additional support to the banking system with a new lending facility.”

On the inflation front, the U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday reported a drop in unemployment benefit claims in the week ending March 11 that was more than expected, indicating a strong labor market that supports the view the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates again this month.

The range of U.S. interest rates is 4.5% to 4.75%, which is the greatest level since October 2007. CME Group analysts predict that there is a 79.7% possibility that the Fed will increase interest rates this month by 25 basis points. The likelihood of no rate rise has decreased from 45.4% on Thursday to 20.3%.

The U.S. consumer price index (CPI) increased by 6% year over year in February, slowing from January’s 6.4% increase but still exceeding the Federal Reserve’s target of keeping yearly inflation below 2%.

As of 9:00 a.m. in Hong Kong, U.S. market futures were trading flat to lower, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures down 0.14%. The Nasdaq Composite Index declined by 0.03% while the S&P 500 futures fell by 0.11%.