Markets: Bitcoin, Ether fall, Dogecoin extends holiday blues

Bitcoin and Ethereum prices fell on Wednesday afternoon in Asia along with all other non-stablecoin top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Dogecoin led losses, dropping 5.37% in the last 24 hours leading to 4:00 p.m. Hong Kong time, followed by Cardano at 4.73% and Polygon at 3.24%.

Fast facts

• Bitcoin dropped 1.33% to US$16,658 in the 24 hours to market close in Hong Kong, while Ether fell 2.20% to US$1,195, according to CoinMarketCap data.
• Dogecoin led the day’s losses with 5.37% to US$0.071. The memecoin has been sliding since supporter Elon Musk said he would be stepping down as the chief of social media platform Twitter.
• Cardano dropped 4.73% to US$0.2514 while XRP was down 2.48% to US$0.3589 in the last 24 hours. Polygon was down too at 3.24% to US$0.7879.
• Most Asian markets were down on Wednesday trading, with the Shanghai Composite Index closing 0.26% lower while Japan’s Nikkei dropped 0.41%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng closed 1.56% higher, gaining a boost from China announcing plans to relax pandemic measures earlier this week.