Bitcoin and Ether rose as investors remained optimistic on Thursday afternoon of trading in Hong Kong. Fidelity is preparing to submit its own spot Bitcoin ETF application, a move seen as a significant step towards legitimizing cryptocurrencies. The world’s first currency briefly touched US$30,465 during the session, while the top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization were mixed.

Kadan Stadelmann, Chief Technical Officer of blockchain infrastructure development firm Komodo, shared a statement with Forkast which read: “Fidelity’s entry into the cryptocurrency market is expected to bring in more institutional money, which could drive up demand for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. This move is also expected to increase the adoption of cryptocurrencies by traditional financial institutions, further legitimizing them as an investment asset class.”

The total crypto market capitalization over the past 24 hours rose 0.03% to US$1.17 trillion, while market volume decreased 21.30% to US$29.58 billion. Bitcoin’s dominance rose to 50.4%, which marks an over two-year high.

The Forkast 500 NFT index fell 0.64% to 2,848.52 points in the 24 hours to 4:30 p.m. in Hong Kong and declined 2.22% during the week. Bitcoin’s 24-hour non-fungible token sales rose 111.14% to US$3.05 million, as sales for $FRAM BRC-20 NFTs rose 62.94% to US$806,351. Ethereum’s 24-hour NFT sales fell 65.84% to US$23.49 million, as sales for Azuki decreased 41.7% to US$3.89 million after collectors were disappointed in the release of the new Azuki Elementals collection.

Among the Forkast Labs NFT indexes, the Forkast CAR NFT Composite was the only one in the black, increasing 0.43% to 990.62 points.