Bitcoin was priced just above $81,000 during the early hours of Monday, reflecting an increase of less than 1% over the past 24 hours. This uptick follows the recent decision by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which facilitated onchain trading of tokenised U.S. stocks on Thursday, according to available data. NEAR emerged as the top performer among the major tokens, increasing approximately 23% to slightly over $4. The move traces to NEAR Intents, a swap service built on the NEAR blockchain that enables a wallet to exchange one token for another across various chains without necessitating the user to transfer funds between them initially.
Major consumer wallets, such as ZODL and Vizor, have integrated to facilitate ZEC swaps, resulting in a sixfold increase in daily ZEC volume routed through the service over the past week. NEAR has emerged as the routing layer for one of the most actively traded tokens in the market, and its own token has mirrored this increased activity. Elsewhere, ZEC increased by 3% to just above $1,500, while BNB rose by 2% to nearly $777. Ether and HYPE each experienced an increase of approximately 2%, whereas XRP, DOGE, SOL, and TRX saw gains of 1% or less.
Equities established the prevailing sentiment during the Asian session. MSCI’s Asia Pacific gauge increased by almost 1%, driven by technology stocks in South Korea and Taiwan, following U.S. officials’ characterisation of discussions with China as “very successful” in anticipation of a summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping this week. S&P 500 futures increased by less than 1%, while Nasdaq 100 contracts experienced a slightly greater rise. Brent crude experienced a decline of 2%, settling just above $101 per barrel, marking its fourth consecutive decrease. This trend alleviates concerns regarding inflation and subsequently boosts Treasury futures.
Jeff Mei, chief operating officer at exchange BTSE, attributed the weekend’s bitcoin spike to the SEC’s approval of onchain trading for tokenised U.S. stocks and the subsequent short squeeze that ensued. He observes minimal activity on the calendar this week aside from comments from Federal Reserve officials. “I’d expect more volatility in the last few weeks leading up to that event,” Mei said of the Fed’s late-October meeting, which leaves more than a month of speeches and a single inflation print to shift positioning before then.
