Bitcoin and Ether were little changed in Asia on Thursday morning, though Ether Classic rose. Solana and Cardano lost ground along with most other top 10 tokens by capitalization, though the global cryptocurrency market cap edged up 0.23% to US$1.03 trillion. Investors across all financial markets remain on edge about the direction of interest rates in the U.S.

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Fast facts

• Bitcoin lost 0.6% in the last 24 hours to trade at US$21,399 at 8 a.m. in Hong Kong, while Ether fell 0.3% to US$1,657, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
  

• Solana saw the biggest drop among the top 10 tokens, falling 2.1% to US$34.93. Cardano lost 1.5% to US$0.46. Ethereum Classic, the original chain the main Ethereum blockchain was forked from, rose 2.9% to US$35.31, as both networks attract attention in the lead-up to “the Merge.”
  

• Cosmos gained 7.3% to US$13.00, posting gains of over 10% for the week as the crypto project Kujira announced the network would be hosting its new stablecoin project earlier this month.
  

• U.S. equities were little changed overnight. The Nasdaq Composite Index finished up 0.4%, the S&P 500 Index gained 0.3% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 0.2% higher.
  

• On Friday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is scheduled to make a keynote speech at the Fed’s annual economic symposium at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he is expected to outline the central bank’s views on inflation, and by extension the likely direction of interest rates in the world’s biggest economy.
  

• Beside concerns about U.S. interest rates, investors also have to contend with the widespread slowdown in China’s industrial production, construction and real estate industries. The world’s second-largest economy has also been hit by power shortages as drought and heatwaves reduced hydroelectric power generation in the country’s central-west.

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