Crypto market news live: Why Axie Infinity has soared 44.4 per cent as Bitcoin price dips
Axie Infinity has surprised crypto analysts recently, soaring 44.4 per cent in the last 24 hours with a 921 per cent increase in volume of tokens traded.
Based around a blockchain-based video game of the same name, Axie Infinity’s recent spike can be attributed to the announcement of a new gaming project from company co-founder Jeffrey Zirlin.
An expansion to the Axie Infinity game, subtitled Homeland, has also increased the token’s presence in the crypto scene.
This comes despite a despite a dramatic drop in the game’s player count over the last year, from 2.78 million in January 2022 to just over 430,000 over the last 30 days.
Interest in recently launched coin Aptos has also shot up, with 42.3 per cent growth over the last seven days, currently sitting as the 29th most valuable cryptocurrency by market cap.
An uptick in sales on the Aptos NFT platform are credited for the surge, with digital works drawing tens of thousands of trades and seeing NFT prices surge.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin prices have remained strong, up 8.9 per cent over the last 7 days, despite a 1 per cent dip in the last 24 hours.
These fluctuations come amid speculation in crypto markets as the US Federal Reserve prepares for its first policy meeting of the year at the end of this month.
The central question troubling analysts is whether they will once again raise interest rates, and if so, by how much.
Market analysts expect a 0.25 per cent hike, encouraged by continued falling inflation in the US.