Despite increased interest rates, bank failures, and worries about a U.S. recession, Bitcoin started to rally beyond US$28,000 in early Monday trading in Asia. This was a support level it had been bouncing around for much of April. The majority of the top 10 non-stablecoin coins increased in value, led by Dogecoin, which rose 2.31% to US$0.08328 for a 5.30% weekly increase. When Elon Musk replaced Twitter’s blue bird image with the Dogecoin dog icon last week, the joke token skyrocketed. In the last 24 hours, the overall market capitalization of cryptocurrencies increased by 0.95% to US$1.19 trillion, while the total trading volume increased by 8.19% to US$29.46 billion. To 8:00 a.m., the Forkast 500 NFT index increased 0.12% to 3,968.42, but dropped 2.34% for the week in Hong Kong.
The Nasdaq-100 futures Index was down 0.10%, the S&P 500 futures increased by 0.091%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures traded in a mixed bag. Although somewhat below estimates, the U.S. unemployment rate of 3.5% in March nonetheless indicated a healthy labor market. Interest rates are currently between 4.75% and 5%, which is the highest level since June 2006. According to CME Group analysts, there is a 35.3% possibility that rates won’t change, while 64.7% anticipate a 25 basis-point increase.
