In a lackluster start to June, Bitcoin experienced a decline in value Friday morning in Asia, trading below the support level at US$27,000. This comes after the cryptocurrency posted its first monthly loss of the year in May. Additionally, Ether also fell back below US$1,900, while most other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies traded flat to lower. The losers were led by Cardano, while Litecoin found buying support as the token’s third halving event approached.
On a more positive note, U.S. equity futures showed an increase following gains in regular trading on Thursday, after the debt ceiling bill passed the House of Representatives and is now awaiting consideration by the Senate. Manufacturing data also indicated a slowdown in the pace of inflation, thereby alleviating concerns about potential interest rate hikes.
However, it is worth noting that analysts anticipate the U.S. Treasury to issue as much as US$1 trillion in treasury bills this year to replenish its cash reserves, which could potentially drain liquidity from risk assets such as cryptocurrencies.
According to data from CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin experienced a decline of 1.17% over the past 24 hours, trading at US$26,878 as of 07:10 a.m. in Hong Kong. Despite this recent fall, the cryptocurrency managed to maintain a weekly gain of 1.53%. In May, Bitcoin witnessed a drop of around 7% but has still managed to record a substantial increase of 62% since the beginning of the year.
Similarly, Ether also experienced a slight decrease of 0.19%, trading at US$1,866. However, the cryptocurrency recorded a weekly gain of 3.20%.
Over the past 24 hours, the majority of the other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies experienced a flat to lower trading trend. However, Litecoin managed to buck this trend by gaining 5.11% and reaching US$94.41, representing an increase of 9.98% for the week. This is notable as the token’s third halving event is scheduled for August 2, which is expected to result in a reduction in the token’s supply.
On Tuesday, blockchain data tracker IntoTheBlock reported that Litecoin’s on-chain activities had increased in May. The data revealed that by the end of May, there were nearly 8.5 million Litecoin addresses with a balance, which is a significant increase from the 7.09 million addresses recorded by the end of March.
Among the top 10 non-stablecoin tokens, Cardano’s ADA experienced the largest decline, falling by 2.35% to US$0.3659. Despite this recent fall, the cryptocurrency managed to record a weekly gain of 2.03%.
On the other hand, Tether’s USDT stablecoin witnessed a significant increase in its market capitalization, reaching an all-time high of US$83.60 billion early Friday morning in Asia. This represents an increase of more than 26% since the beginning of the year.
Justin d’Anethan, who serves as the head of APAC business development at Belgium-based crypto market maker Keyrock, remarked that the recent rise in USDT’s market capitalization is likely due to the banking issues in the United States and the collapse of BUSD from Binance. He further added that investors seem to be placing their trust, as well as their funds, in Tether thus far.
Over the past 24 hours, the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies has decreased by 0.64%, dropping to US$1.13 trillion. Additionally, the 24-hour market volume has fallen by 7.79%, reaching US$30.28 billion.
