The crypto market went into consolidation mode on Thursday following its relief bounce, with Bitcoin (BTC) and a few altcoins registering moderate gains intra-day with a healthy distance between their Wednesday dip and Friday morning prices. q. Trade volumes across exchanges, however, declined by 14 per cent over the same period.
BTC remained range-bound, with a gain of 1 per cent today to end at $44,550. Having flipped its $43,000 resistance to support, BTC held its ground from an intraday low of $43,450 as it prepared for an upwards move, but was repeatedly thwarted by strong resistance at the $45,000 level. BTC dominance rose to close at 42.2 per cent.
Ethereum (ETH) showed signs of an extended rally, holding well above the $3,000 and even breaking the $3,150 resistance level briefly to show signs of bullishness, with an intra-day high of $3,170. It is currently trading at $3,100 with support at $3,050 and major resistance at $3,300.
Key altcoins had a mixed day with Algorand (ALGO), Terra (LUNA), Polkadot (DOT), and Cosmos (ATOM) registering gains of over 2 per cent while Ripple (XRP), Solana (SOL), and Uniswap (UNI) had modest declines.
BTC is expected to remain range-bound this week, with analysts expecting its price actions to top around $46,000-48,000 before undergoing another dip. As BTC continues to hold above its 20-week moving average at $40,700, major altcoins are likely to register growth.
Top Gainers today:
- Ren (REN): 23.8%
- THORChain (RUNE): 13.9%
- NEAR Protocol (NEAR): 12.9%
Top Losers today:
- Perpetual Protocol (PREP): -8.4%
- Maker (MKR): -5.3%
- Stacks (STX): -4.2%
The analysis includes the top 100 cryptocurrencies only as of 9 am IST
Source: CoinMarketCap
Crypto News at a Glance:
- Twitter has rolled out a Bitcoin-based payment/tipping feature for iOS users, including support for Lightning wallets, as part of its plan to support creators on its platform with a similar rollout for Android soon to follow.
- BTG Pactual, a Brazilian investment bank with over $70 billion in assets under management (AUM), has announced the launch of a new platform that enables customers to make direct investments in Bitcoin.
- Blockchain infrastructure developer Blockdaemon has raised $155 million in a Series B funding round led by the Softbank Vision Fund 2 to further expand its DeFi infrastructure and bridge the gap between digital assets and traditional banking.
- The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has reached an agreement with The Dubai World Trade Centre Authority (DWTCA) to officially allow and support cryptocurrency trading in an economic-free zone in Dubai.
- Investment management firms Invesco and Galaxy Digital Holdings have partnered together to launch exchange-traded funds (ETFs) backed by the cryptocurrency as it aims to track the performance of cryptocurrencies while trading like a stock.
- One of the first websites about Bitcoin - Bitcoin.org - has been hacked by scammers, as confirmed by the site’s anonymous founder.
