Bitcoin gains with all top cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin jumped 1.05 per cent to $30,453 during the past 24 hours

Bitcoin gained along with other top cryptocurrencies on Friday after data this week showed the U.S. economy grew even in the face of interest rate hikes. U.S. GDP rose faster than expected in Q1 and initial jobless claims came in at less than anticipated. Also, asset manager Fidelity Investments on Thursday filed to offer a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Bitcoin jumped 1.05 per cent to $30,453 during the past 24 hours, as per CoinMarketCap data. The token is 1.43 per cent higher over the last seven days.

Ether added 1.28 per cent to $1,853, but is 1.4 per cent lower for the week.

All top non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies traded higher. Solana led the advances on a 12.35 per cent climb and a 7.56 per cent weekly gain. This despite the Thursday announcement from Cardinal, a Solana NFT protocol, that it will be closing down operations because of what it termed a challenging macroeconomic environment.

Cardinal tweeted on Thursday that the team will disable new deposit instructions on July 19 and stop operations on features including staking and new NFT rentals.

Meanwhile, Fidelity has refiled an application for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund. The Thursday filing with the US SEC shows that the Chicago Board Options Exchange (COBE) has proposed to list and trade shares of the Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust. The SEC rejected a Bitcoin ETF application from Fidelity in 2021.

Fidelity’s move comes amid a series of U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund applications submitted by asset managers this month, including BlackRock, WisdomTree, Invesco and Bitwise, suggesting institutions are confident in the profit potential of digital assets and demand.

To this point, the lack of a spot Bitcoin ETP exposes U.S. investor assets to considerable risk as investors that would otherwise seek crypto asset exposure via a spot Bitcoin ETP are compelled to look for alternative exposure via generally riskier means, according to the Fidelity filing.

On Wednesday, investment management fund ARK Invest also filed an amendment to its April application for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund.

The total cryptocurrency market capitalisation increased 1.24 per cent to $1.17trln, with trading volume declining 12.22 per cent to $29.96bln, as per data from CoinMarketCap.