Polygon Leads Broad Crypto Surge, Bitcoin Breaks Back Above $21,000
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Cryptocurrencies are rising Friday as bitcoin climbed over $21,000 during Asia’s trading hours.
MATIC, the native token of Ethereum-scaling platform Polygon MATIC , is leading the surge, according to Forbes Digital Assets leaderboard. The token has extended its Thursday rally after Polygon’s team introduced a product with improved privacy for decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S. by market share, announced that it had added support for cryptocurrency transactions on Polygon. MATIC is up by 16.45% over the past 24 hours as of 9:38 A.M. ET.
MATIC jumped by more than 50% this week.
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Among the 10 largest cryptocurrencies, XRP XRP and solana are posting the highest gains, 13.3% and 12% respectively. Speaking at the NFT.NYC conference yesterday, Anatoly Yakovenko, Solana’s SOL cofounder and CEO, unveiled a new Android phone called Saga and a new subsidiary within Solana focused on Web3 mobile applications.
Solana’s rival Ethereum is also rallying. The second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is currently trading at $1,220, up by nearly 10% on the day.
Today’s recovery comes with gains in equity and bond markets. U.S. S&P futures rose 0.9% and MSC SC MSCI I’s world equities index is up 0.5% on the day and 2.5% on the week, the first weekly gain in a month.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell highlighted at a congressional hearing Thursday that his commitment to curbing inflation, which is now at a 40-year high, is “unconditional.”
Analysts at Evercore ISI noted that the comparably “hawkish” tone points to the likelihood of rate hikes in large increments, which risks “oversteering and causing recession.”
Morgan Stanley MS stated earlier this week that the S&P 500 has yet to price in a full-blown economic recession. Citigroup C pegs the possibility of a recession at 50%.
