Bitcoin and Ether Market Update January 12, 2022

The total crypto market cap is up by $32 billion for the period since Monday and now stands at $884 billion. The top ten currencies are all in green for the day, with only ether (ETH) and bitcoin (BTC) leading the group with 2.8 and 2.4% increases respectively.

At the time of writing bitcoin is trading at $18,181. Ether is at $1,396.

BTC/USD

Bitcoin closed the trading day on Sunday, Aug.8 at $17,130, above the $16,800-$17,000 short-term resistance for the first time since mid-December. The move resulted in a 3.2% of price increase on a weekly basis.

On Monday, the new seven-day trading period started with a push above the mentioned horizontal obstacle as buyers were looking to extend the uptrend further up. BTC hit $17,400 early in the day but then easily gave up the gains later in the session.

We saw the coin pump above $17,400 again on Tuesday as another 1.7% was added and the price was already stable above the range mid-zone.

The third day of the workweek came with a fourth consecutive green candle on the daily chart for the biggest cryptocurrency. It surpassed the range high at $17,600 and was already looking at the former multi-timeframe support in the $18,500-$18,800 area.

The previously-discussed bull flag on the weekly chart was invalidated, but the second test of the $18,500 mark could depend on today’s CPI inflation data from the United States. 24-hour trading volumes are already stable above the 14-day average.

What we are seeing as of the time of writing this market update on Thursday is a continuation of the uptrend as BTC is rallying.

ETH/USD

The Ethereum Project token ETH closed last week trading at $1,290, which corresponded to a 7.5% increase on a seven-day basis – the biggest one-week increase since the end of Oct.22.

On Monday, Jan.9, the coin moved above the $1,300 mark and added 3 more percent as the mid $1,300s was expected to be the next short-term obstacle for buyers.

The Tuesday session, however, was no different and the biggest altcoin continued to rally, breaking into the mentioned zone.

The mid-week session on Wednesday came with a solid 5% push to $1,400. On the weekly timeframe, it already broke above the higher end of the Bear Pennant formation invalidating it (for the moment). It is also flirting with the 200-day Simple Moving Average on high daily volumes and with a Relative Strength Index (RSI) that is already in its mid-zone.

The economic data from the United States this week will be critical for the general market trend as both BTC and ETH can easily be rejected if the numbers come higher than expected due to the similarly fragile price action.

A better-than-expected numbers will allow them to run above the critical resistance and allow the rest of the altcoins to catch up with them. And we can clearly see some of the major alts are either at or above mid-term resistances.

The ETH/USDT pair is currently flat, early on Thursday.