First Mover Asia: Bitcoin Inches Upward in Sunday Trading

$Bitcoin (BTC.CC)$ inched upward on Sunday but remained well off where it started the week amid investors' concerns about ongoing inflationary pressure and a possible war with Russia.

At the time of publication, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was trading at about $42,200 up slightly over the past 24 hours Ether and other major altcoins fell. Ether was trading at about $2,880, off slightly.

"Overall, crypto is down this week, including a slide in prices Friday that some believe is correlated to reports of Russian military exercises indicating that an invasion and possible resulting war is imminent," said Joe DiPasquale, the CEO of fund manager BitBull Capital.

Trading volume for the past week was about half its level of a year ago, leading to the high price volatility. "This week has seen the prices of major cryptos both rise and fall sharply," DiPasquale said.

Crypto's choppy performance has largely emulated major stock indexes, which fell sharply on Friday. The S&P 500 dropped nearly 2% on Friday and the tech-focused Nasdaq plummeted 2.7%.