Cardano (ADA) followed many layer 1 tokens and posted gains during the Asian trading hours on Thursday.
- Cardano rose 7% soon after Coinbase restarted withdrawals on Wednesday. Traders started facing withdrawal issues last week.
- Sentiments in Asia were further buoyed after Hong Kong’s central bank, Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), seemed to provide an open ear to crypto stakeholders in a new discussion paper.
- Cardano was trading at $1.30 by mid-day Hong Kong time, up 6% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.
- Other layer 1 tokens, such as Solana (SOL), also posted gains of up to 10% in the past 24 hours.
- Layer 1 refers to individual blockchains, such as Ethereum or Solana, over which developers can build applications and services.
- Reports of cardano traders facing difficulties withdrawing their tokens from Coinbase spooked the market last week, pushing cardano down to $1.11 from a late December high of $1.60.
- Traders were also relieved that HKMA appeared to have an open mind to crypto as its Chief Executive solicited stakeholder feedback to build a “risk-based, pragmatic and agile regulatory regime.” Hong Kong’s regulators were seen as hostile to crypto in the past
- March Zheng, a Shanghai-based partner at China’s Bizantine Capital pointed to a continued correlation between a bullish stock market and rising crypto prices in a comment to CoinDesk.
- Zheng said that this extends beyond layer 1 tokens to the bitcoin and ether markets, and says the fund is considering re-entering based on institutional buying volumes of those assets.
Read more: Cardano vs. Ethereum: Can Ada Solve Ether’s Problems?