Markets: Bitcoin, Ether up, Solana, Helium rise after merge announcement

Bitcoin and Ether rose in a mixed morning for the top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Solana posted the biggest gains while Polygon’s Matic led losses on Tuesday morning in Asia.

Fast facts

• Bitcoin rose 2.1% in the last 24 hours to trade at US$24,833 as of 8 a.m. in Hong Kong, bringing its gains to 13.9% over the past calendar week, according to CoinMarketCap. Ethereum gained 1.3% to US$1,703, rising 13% over the past seven days.
• Solana was up 5.5% in the last 24 hours and 26.1% for the week to US$26.22 after Helium Network, a blockchain project dedicated to improving connectivity in the Internet of Things, announced on Saturday that it plans to merge with Solana late in March. Helium’s token HNT, the 95th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up 10% to US$3.19, a weekly gain of 31.3%.
• Polygon’s Matic fell 0.4% to US$1.47, but was still trading up US$24.4% for the week.
• XRP rose 3.1% to US$0.39, bringing its weekly gains to 7.4%, after Ripple Labs Inc., the developer of the Ripple payment network which is powered by XRP, tweeted it is recruiting new engineering roles on Monday. The company now has 75 open positions in total, according to its website.
• The total crypto market capitalization rose 1.2% to reach US$1.13 trillion at 8 a.m. in Hong Kong. The total trading volume over the past 24 hours was up by 16.4% to US$64.8 billion.
• Many major U.S. retailers are slated to release their holiday season earnings this week, starting with Walmart Inc. and Home Depot Inc. on Tuesday. The earning reports are set to come amid growing recessionary concerns in the U.S., as the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates from near zero to 4.5% to 4.75% to cool inflation.
• The latest Consumer Price Index data showed that inflation was up 6.4% in January from a year ago, down from 6.5% in December and 7.1% in November. Analysts at the CME Group predict a roughly 80% chance that the Fed will raise rates by another 25 basis points next month.
• U.S. equities will resume trade on Tuesday after closing on Monday for Presidents’ Day.