On Friday, major cryptocurrency prices held steady, with Bitcoin trading narrowly around the $64,300 mark. In contrast, South Korea's stock market posted its biggest single-day gain of the year, ending a two-week selling spree.
Among leading tokens, Ethereum was at $1,907, Ripple at $1.08, Solana at $74, and Dogecoin at $0.07. Bitcoin and Ethereum recorded daily trading volumes of approximately $27 billion and $7 billion, respectively. BNB was the standout performer, rising 3% to $590, making it the only major token to post a notable gain over the past week.
The Korea Composite Stock Price Index rebounded sharply by 17% on the day, following three consecutive sessions of decline that had seen it drop over 40% from its June peak. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix both surged over 23%, while TSMC gained 10%, with the chip sector emerging as a key driver of the broader rally across Asia-Pacific markets. This rebound came on the heels of the largest one-day gain in US chip stocks in over a year, as the Nasdaq 100 ended a six-day losing streak. In after-hours trading, Amazon rose nearly 10% on strong cloud business results, while Apple fell 6% due to supply constraints weighing on sales forecasts.
For much of July, Bitcoin has shown a close correlation with the semiconductor sector, moving in tandem with chip stocks. However, while US big tech stocks saw a single-day market value loss of $797 billion last Thursday and South Korean stocks experienced a record plunge this week, Bitcoin remained resilient. This time, it did not follow the stock market's rebound.
Additionally, a significant security incident failed to impact prices. Approximately 500 Coldcard hardware wallets were compromised due to a key generation vulnerability, leading to the theft of about 594 Bitcoins, valued at around $38 million. The market reaction to this event was muted.
In the foreign exchange market, the Japanese yen gave back some of its gains after posting its largest single-day rise in over two years on Thursday, following fresh intervention by Japanese authorities. The Bank of Japan kept its interest rate unchanged, in line with market expectations, which extended the yen's decline. US Treasuries and the dollar moved higher in tandem, while international oil prices continued their downward trend.
Comments