Bitcoin rises above $81,000, while NEAR jumps 23% on Zcash swap traffic
Equities set the tone through the Asian session. MSCI's Asia Pacific gauge climbed nearly 1%, led by technology shares in South Korea and Taiwan, after U.S. officials described talks with China as "very successful" ahead of a summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping this week.
S&P 500 futures rose less than 1% and Nasdaq 100 contracts a little more. Brent crude fell 2% to just above $101 a barrel, its fourth straight decline, easing inflation worries and lifting Treasury futures.
Jeff Mei, chief operating officer at exchange BTSE, put the weekend’s bitcoin spike down to the SEC clearing onchain trading of tokenized U.S. stocks and the short squeeze that followed. He sees little on the calendar this week beyond remarks 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.
Read More: Coinbase, Robinhood, Circle could be early winners of SEC's tokenized-stock push, analysts say