The crypto markets kept a steady pace on Wednesday morning, adding 1.4% to the now US$1.07tn market capitalisation.
Bitcoin stayed around the US$23,000 mark while Ethereum enjoyed a slightly better 3.28% gain to US$1,640.
Among the day’s top risers were Ethereum scaling solution Optimism with a 17% gain, staking platform Lido DAO with a 17.5% gain, and the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s ApeCoin with a 10% gain.
The US$13bn Solana network took a 3.5% hit to its market capitalisation, while major Chinese crypto exchange Huobi Global and fan-engagement platform Chiliz were also among the biggest daily losers.
Underscoring the mid-week slump in activity was a 8.34% decline in trading volumes across the wider crypto ecosystem.
In the decentralised finance (DeFi) space, decentralised exchange Uniswap regained 4.7% of lost ground after downtrending this week, while Aave enjoyed a 5.7% run over the past 24 hours.
Total DeFi volumes now stand at US$87.43bn, a slight 1% daily drop.
In the news
Following Robinhood’s unsurprisingly average interim results this morning, CEO and co-founder Vladimir Tenev announced a 23% workforce reduction as part the second restructuring plan so far this year.
“While employees from all functions will be impacted, the changes are particularly concentrated in our operations, marketing, and program management functions,” Tenev said in a blog post.
Prominent Ethereum miner Chandler Guo has signalled his intention to hard fork Ethereum in retaliation to the network’s decision to transition away from mining.
The fork would create a new digital currency called EthereumPoW (ETHW) in direct competition with the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency.