Total crypto market cap shows strength even after the Merge and Federal Reserve rate hike

cointelegraph.com:

Cryptocurrencies have been in a bear trend since mid-August after they failed to break above the $1.2 trillion market capitalization resistance. Even with the current bear trend and a brutal 25% correction, it has not been enough to break the 3-month-long ascending trend.

The crypto markets' aggregate capitalization declined 7.2% to $920 billion in the 7 days leading to Sept. 21. Investors wanted to play it safe ahead of the Federal Open Markets Committee meeting, which decided to increase the interest rate by 0.75%.

By increasing the cost of borrowing cash, the monetary authority aims to curb inflationary pressure while increasing the burden on consumer finance and corporate debt. This explains why investors moved away from risk assets, including stock markets, foreign currencies, commodities and cryptocurrencies. For instance, WTI oil prices ceded 6.8% from Sept. 14, and the MSCI China stock market index dropped 5.1%.

Ether (ETH) also saw a 17.3% retrace during the 7-day period and many altcoins performed even worse. The Ethereum network Merge and its subsequent impact on other GPU-mineable coins caused some skewed results among the worst weekly performers.

Chiliz (CHZ) rallied 21.5% following two successful fan token launches from MIBR esports team and the VASCO soccer team from Brazil.

XRP gained 16.6% after Ripple Labs called for a federal judge to immediately rule whether the company's XRP token sales violated U.S. securities laws.

ApeCoin (APE) gained 15% as the community expects the staking program to launch, which shall be detailed by Horizen Labs on Sept. 22.

RavenCoin (RVN) and Ethereum Classic (ETC) retraced most of their gains from the previous week as investors realized the hashrate gains from Ethereum miners did