The second-largest token, Ether, continued to fall on Monday, and there was also the possibility of a global wave of monetary tightening this week extending from the US to Europe.
Ether fell as much as 5.6 percent to a two-month low and was trading around $1,302 as of 10.35 am in Singapore, while Bitcoin shed about 5 percent to recede below $19,000. Tokens like XRP, Avalanche, and Polkadot posted heavier losses.
An Ether jump since mid-June that was spurred by the hype around an upgrade of the Ethereum blockchain is rapidly unwinding now the revamp is done. Meanwhile, investors are bracing for volatility from the jumbo interest-rate hike expected this week from the Federal Reserve to fight price pressures.
The Ethereum update – the Merge – to slash energy usage is a “ginormous shift” but “in this inflationary environment macro trumps everything,” Antoni Trenchev, managing partner at crypto lender Nexo, wrote in a note.
That’s evident in the pressure on a range of assets: global stocks are closer to wiping out a climb since mid-June that for many were a bear-market rally. US equity futures were in the red Monday, while a dollar gauge pushed higher.
The price of Ripple’s affiliated token, XRP, fell as much as 12% in response to rumours that Ripple Labs and the US Securities & Exchange Commission are requesting an urgent judgement in court. The SEC believes that in asserting that XRP isn’t a regulated security, Ripple was “reckless.”
