Bitcoin Dives To $28,500; Coinbase is backed by US futures approval; Fed minutes cast a shadow over stocks

Bitcoin and Ether fell Thursday morning in Asia, along with the top 10 most volatile digital currencies. Bitcoin briefly fell below $28,500, while losses in Ether kept it below the important psychological minimum of $1,800. Smaller altcoins such as Dogecoin, Solana, and Ripple have suffered the biggest declines. In more bullish news, Coinbase Global has received approval to offer crypto futures contracts to US retail investors. The Forkast 500 NFT Index is down, though market sentiment remains positive amid a prolonged increase in global transactions. US stock futures traded mixed after another day of losses on Wednesday. The release of minutes from the Federal Reserve’s July interest rate meeting has overshadowed stocks, and the mood music now points to a prolonged period of higher rates or even another hike.

Another down day for cryptocurrency

Bitcoin is down 0.95% in the past 24 hours to $28,551.83 as of 9:00 am in Hong Kong, after falling briefly below the $28,500 threshold earlier in the morning. The largest cryptocurrency by market cap posted a weekly loss of 3.51%, according to CoinMarketCap. data.

Ether also lost 1.80% to $1,794.91 – below the psychologically important $1,800 level – against a 3.28% drop in the past seven days.

All 10 other volatile cryptocurrencies have fallen. Dogecoin was the biggest loser among the top ten, dropping 5.01% to $0.06731 for a weekly loss of 10.07%. Solana followed in terms of losses, falling 4.25% to $22.83. The coin has fallen by 5.98% in the past week.

“The larger currencies experienced less pressure than the smaller altcoins,” Alex Kuptsikevich, senior market analyst at London-based online brokerage FxPro, wrote in an emailed statement.

“The rise in US Treasury bond yields is putting pressure on riskier assets,” Koptsiewicz said.

The losses arrive in the midst of more positive news for the cryptocurrency market.

On Wednesday, Coinbase Global – the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States – announce It has received approval from the National Futures Association to offer crypto futures contracts to US retail investors. Previously, only institutional clients could trade cryptocurrency futures contracts on the platform.

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Calling it a “watershed moment,” Coinbase celebrated the win despite facing securities infringement charges from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

“They now have (Futures Commission Dealer Status) certified and compliant, and they understand the nuances of the cryptocurrency markets,” wrote Chris Perkins, president and managing partner at CoinFund, a New York-based investment advisor.

“It is a significant step forward in the development of liquid and deep derivatives markets – much needed. This should be very good for Coinbase and excellent for the cryptocurrency markets.”

Ripple’s XRP token also lost 3.66% to $0.5862, posting a weekly loss of 8.08%. On July 13, it appeared that Ripple had scored a victory in its ongoing legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission. New York Court to rule Selling XRP on public exchanges does not violate securities laws.

However, this aspect of the issue is under scrutiny again, on Aug. 9, by the Securities and Exchange Commission Requested To review the verdict – contributing to the downward pressure on the XRP price.

The total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies decreased by 1.47% over the past 24 hours to $1.14 trillion, while the trading volume increased by 13.64% to $33.76 billion.

Daily NFT transactions have reached historic levels

The indices are proxy measures of the performance of the global NFT market. administered by cryptoslamwhich is a sister company of Forkast.News under the Forkast.Labs umbrella.

The main Forkast 500 NFT Index is down 0.76% over the past 24 hours at 2457.08 as of 08:45 AM in Hong Kong. The index showed a loss of 1.23% for the week.

Forkast’s Ethereum, Solana and Cardano NFT indexes posted losses, while Polygon rose.

Total NFT trading volume decreased by 7.72% in the last 24 hours to $15.01 million, according to data From CryptoSlam. Volumes on blockchains Ethereum, Polygon, and ImmutableX posted losses, while volume on Solana and Mythos rose.

On Wednesday, the total number of global NFT transactions reached a new high, hitting an all-time high of 617,619, up from 595,209 on Tuesday.

“The NFT market is maturing right in front of us and we are reaching historic levels on a daily basis,” said Yehuda Beecher, NFT Strategist at Forkast Labs.

“Sales volume is not a measure of the health of the NFT ecosystem, it is the buyers and sellers and their transactions,” Beecher said. “I am very optimistic about NFTs at the moment.”

Much of this optimism is based on lower NFT prices, Beecher said, with the average NFT price now at $22.08, down from $37.85 in the previous week.

“Average selling prices, I want to point out again that they’re continuing to come down and that’s a very good thing. We want to bring in the masses. We want our friends and family to join NFTs,” Beecher added.

DMarket, a blockchain gaming-related group based on the Mythos network, topped the NFT groups chart in terms of trade volume on CryptoSlam, adding 0.45% to $970,811.

Ethereum-based DeGods came in second though with a 38.75% drop to $922,882. The group recently launched its “Season 3” group update on Sunday. The Heist, an NFT pool based on the strategy game of the same name, ranked third with a trading volume of $756,980.

(Updates to add NFT section)