Early Friday morning saw Bitcoin edging higher to maintain its above-US$19,000 position after varying around that resistance level all week. While XRP led the gainers among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, Ether fell.
At 8 a.m., Bitcoin was up 0.7% over the previous 24 hours to trade at US$19,564. according to data from CoinMarketCap, while Ether fell 0.1% to US$1,335 in Hong Kong.
Following a U.S. announcement, XRP jumped 7.4% to trade at $0.48. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s attempts to withhold documents in its legal dispute with Ripple Labs Inc.—whose payment network is powered by XRP—were rejected by a district court judge.
Former Division Director William Hinman penned the documents, which mainly relate to a speech he gave in which he claimed that Bitcoin and Ether are not securities.
The sole other token, Solana, increased by a full percentage point, rising 2.2% to US$33.97. BNB increased by 0.7% to US$283 while Dogecoin gained 0.2% to US$0.06.
U.S. stocks suffered on Thursday. The S&P 500 Index finished the day down 2.1% to set a new low for the year, while the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 2.8% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.5%.
The tech giant Apple Inc., which closed down 4.9% after Bank of America downgraded the stock from “buy” to “neutral,” was the leader of the general sell-off. Bank of America believes that weaker consumer demand will negatively affect the company’s bottom line. Shares of Apple have decreased 20% so far this year.
The latest gross domestic product estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, released on Thursday, showed that the economy shrank by 0.6% in Q2 this year after contracting by a similar amount in Q1. This news sent shockwaves through the markets, according to one definition of the term.
Jerome Powell, the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, has stated that the institution will keep raising interest rates until its goal of 2% inflation is met, even if doing so increases the risk of an economic downturn.
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