The top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization had a mixed morning of trading on Monday in Asia, although Bitcoin didn’t alter much. After the U.S.-based Kraken cryptocurrency exchange shut down its staking service on Thursday and paid a fine of US$30 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for failing to register the business, Bitcoin fell below US$22,000 on the market. Much of the crypto market fell over the weekend as a result of the SEC action. This morning, XRP was among the top losers, while Solana advanced.

Quick Facts

According to data from CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin dropped 0.4% over the last 24 hours to US$21,796 at 8 a.m. in Hong Kong, shedding 5% over the previous 7 days to trade in the same price range as almost a month ago. Ether lost 1.6% to US$1,515 for a weekly loss of 7.1%.

Solana recovered 3.1% to reach US$21.48, although it is still down 8.5% for the past seven days. After Ethereum, Solana is the largest non-fungible token (NFT) blockchain, accounting for 14% of all NFT transactions, according to a report by cryptocurrency research company Delphi Digital.

XRP lost 2.3% to trade at US$0.37, a loss of 6% for the week. Since December 2020, Ripple Labs Inc., a business whose XRP-powered payment network is operated, has been involved in a legal dispute with the SEC. The SEC asserts that Ripple Labs issued XRP as an unregistered securities. The company stated that it anticipates a decision in the first half of this year, which would provide the entire cryptocurrency business more legal clarity.

During an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Friday, SEC Chair Gary Gensler urged other cryptocurrency exchanges to “take heed” of the penalty imposed on Kraken for its staking service.

Hester Peirce, a commissioner for the SEC, lambasted him for the action on Kraken, calling it that of a “lazy” regulator.

On Friday, U.S. stocks had a mixed day. The S&P 500 Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average both increased by 0.5%, while the Nasdaq Composite Index decreased by 0.6% for the day.

Investors are getting ready for the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) for January, which will be released on Tuesday. The CPI is a commonly used indicator of inflation in the economy and is also used by the Federal Reserve to determine interest rates.

The CPI is predicted to rise by 0.4% in January, slowing the annual growth rate from 6.5% to 6.2%. It is anticipated that core CPI would increase by 0.4% from the prior month, bringing the annual rate to 5.5%.

Price growth was 6.5% year over year in December, down from the 7.1% recorded in November, which in turn showed a gradual reduction from October’s 7.7% and September’s 8.2%.

Since last March, the Fed has increased interest rates many times to combat inflation, and according to CME Group analysts, there is a greater than 90% possibility that the Fed will increase rates by another 25 basis points at its meeting next month. The current range of U.S. interest rates is 4.5% to 4.75%, which is the highest level in 15 years. Fed officials have frequently said they could increase rates as high as 5%.

On Friday, cryptocurrencies saw losses. The market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies was $1.01 trillion, with a volume of $80.01 billion over the previous day.

Bitcoin
Bitcoin, the biggest and most used virtual currency in the world, decreased 4.09 percent to $21,896. It had a $422.58 billion market value. The value of the trade was $32.70 billion.

Ethererum
The second-largest virtual currency, decreased 5.25 percent to $1,548.37. In the previous day, $10.74 billion worth of Ethereum was traded.

Shiba Inu
Shiba Inu market capitalization of $6.85 billion decreased by 5.40 percent. $519.65 million worth of transactions were made within the past 24 hours.

Solana
Solana market capitalization dropped to $7.8 billion as the stock declined 7.99 percent to $20.81. In the previous 24 hours, Solana saw $873.81 million in trading.

Polygon
Polygon market capitalization of $10.97 billion decreased by 1.33 percent. In the previous 24 hours, there were $1.31 billion worth of trades.