Rising prices for Bitcoin and Ether
Along with the other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ether increased in value during Wednesday afternoon trading in Asia. Solana had the largest increase (18%), followed by Cardano and BNB. in Hong Kong. Bitcoin increased 0.83% to US$16,817. In comparison, Ether increased by 2.78% to trade at US$1,251.
Solana, the tenth-largest non-stablecoin crypto by market capitalization, increased 18.45% in the past day to trade at US$14.12. The launch of Bonk, a Solana-focused dog-themed coin that airdropped half of its token supply last week, was a major factor in this rise. Solana increased 39.22% over the previous week.
Cardano increased by 4.69% to trade at US$0.2654, and BNB increased by 3.63% to US$255.26.
As investors searched for indications of interest rate changes ahead of the release of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s meeting minutes on Wednesday, Asian stock markets had a mixed day.
The Shanghai Composite index increased 0.22%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index closed 3.22% higher. The Nikkei 225 index of Japan fell 1.45% as factory activity declined at its fastest rate in 26 months in December.
Polygon Keeps Moving Forward
Although the cryptocurrency market has been shrouded in a cloud of financial uncertainty since the end of 2021, Polygon, a layer-2 scaling solution that runs alongside the Ethereum blockchain and enables quick transactions and low fees, continued to experience significant growth in 2022. The network’s total number of unique addresses surpassed 200 million, hitting an all-time high of 205,420,908 on December 31.
Additionally, between December 1 and December 31, the number of unique addresses in the Polygon ecosystem increased by an astounding 8,783,568.
The total amount of Ether down $1,250 locked within the Ethereum ecosystem has risen steadily throughout 2022. Staked ETH increased from just over 9 million to nearly 13 million between February and June. The trend reached a plateau between June and September, as shown in the graph below, before picking up steam again around mid-September, just in time for Ethereum’s eagerly anticipated switch to proof-of-stake.
