Ether dulls Ahead Of Merge as Bitcoin and Solana lead increases in the top ten cryptocurrencies

Tuesday morning trading in Asia saw Bitcoin rise to maintain its advances above US$22,000, a figure it crossed on Monday for the first time in three and a half weeks. Solana saw the biggest gains among the top ten tokens by market capitalization, while Ether experienced a decline.

According to data from CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin increased 2.8% in the last day to trade at US$22,365 at 8 a.m. in Hong Kong, while Ethereum decreased 2.8% to US$1,712.

The decline in Ethereum occurs just before the eagerly anticipated “Merge,” which will see the network switch from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. The price of Ethereum Classic, the network from which the primary Ethereum network is forked, was essentially unchanged at US$38.49 in recent weeks.

As voting began on a proposal for the Helium Network to relocate off its own blockchain and onto Solana, Solana witnessed the highest gains in the CoinMarketCap top 10, up 7% to US$37.41. A dispersed network of long-range wireless hotspots called Helium aims to compete with traditional wired internet access.

U.S. stocks increased on Monday. The S&P 500 Index concluded 1.1% higher, the Nasdaq Composite Index closed 1.3% higher, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 0.7%.

Investors are anticipating the release of the U.S. Consumer Price Index for August, a crucial indicator of inflation in the economy. Some projections indicate a rate of 8.1% or a slowing from July’s 8.5%.

The U.S. Federal Reserve bases its interest rate decisions on the CPI index. Senior Fed officials have stated their intention to keep raising interest rates until inflation falls within a 2%–3% range. 

Investors anticipate that the Fed will increase interest rates by 75 basis points at its meeting on September 20 and 21.