AVAX, NEAR beat Ether and Bitcoin as wall of red continues in Asia

Avalanche's native token AVAX and Near Protocol's NEAR held early solid Friday as the broader market trimmed gains from early this week, taking cues from equities.

AVAX boasted a 24-hour gain of 8.2% at press time, with NEAR trading 6% higher. Meanwhile, bitcoin was down 2.5% in the last 24 hours, trading below $36,500, while ether is down 3.3% and changing hands under $2,000.

Avalanche's inclusion in the Monetary Authority of Singapore's (MAS) tokenization initiative Project Guardian likely galvanized investor interest in its native token AVAX.

Under MAS's Project Guardian, Onyx by J.P. Morgan and Apollo Global demonstrated a blockchain Proof of Concept for revolutionizing asset management, paralleling Citi's use of similar technology for FX trade simulations, according to announcements from Avalance and the MAS. Onyx is JP Morgan's blockchain-based fixed-income trading network.

These demonstrations showcase how tokenization and smart contracts can automate and enhance the efficiency and scalability of financial services, a priority for the Singaporean regulator's push towards utilizing blockchain for FinTech and not crypto.

Meanwhile, NEAR likely drew strength from a series of positive announcements during the Nearcon conference.

Elsewhere, the decline in market leaders saw sizeable liquidations of leveraged positions. Coinglass data shows that $48 million in bitcoin long positions have been liquidated in 24 hours, while $30 million in ether long positions have been liquidated in the same time period.