Bitcoin, Ether, Major Altcoins – Weekly Market Update April 4, 2022

The total crypto market cap added $16 billion to its value over the last seven days and now stands at $2.14 billion. The top 10 coins were mostly in green for the same time period with Solana (SOL) and Terra (LUNA) leading the group with 25 and 22 percent gains respectively while XRP (XRP) lost 2 percent. Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading at $46,135 while ether (ETH) is at 3,472.

BTC/USD

Bitcoin closed the trading day on Sunday, March 27 at $46,876 after forming a huge green candle which resulted in a 5.4 percent of price increase for the session. This helped bulls break above both the 21-period EMA on weekly and the horizontal resistance at $42,000 on the same timeframe.

The confirmed technical breakout established the $45,500-$46,000 area as the next macro support.

On Monday, the BTC/USDT pair drew its seventh consecutive daily candle in green. It climbed up to $47,144, but not before hitting the 200-day MA near $48,300 during intraday.

The Tuesday session was no different and the coin moved further up to $47,500 thus extending its gains.

The mid-week trading on Wednesday came with a small correction down to $47,000 as the $47,500 – $48,000 zone started to act as short-term resistance.

The temporary stagnation in BTC’s price rally gave altcoins the chance to catch up. The Relative Strength Indicator (RSI) was already in the overbought territory while the 24-hour volumes were close to the average values for the last 14 days.

On Thursday, March 31 we saw a solid red candle on the daily chart. Bitcoin dropped down to $45,515 erasing 3 percent and testing the already-mentioned macro support.

The coin ended the month of March 5.6 percent higher.

Bears were trying their best to push the price below the support and on Friday succeed in doing so, at least temporarily. The BTC/USDT pair hit $44,100 between 21 and 200 EMA during intraday, but then quickly recovered to close the session in green at $46,200.

The weekend of April 2-3 started with a volatile session on Saturday, during which the biggest cryptocurrency was trading in the $47,200 – $45,800 range, but eventually closed in red.

Then on Sunday, it formed the exact same candle but in the opposite direction to end the week with 1 percent loss.

ETH/USD

The Ethereum project token ETH was still flying high on the news of the successful Ethereum Proof of stake (PoS) testnet merge last week. Investors were betting on a higher price of the biggest altcoin in the coming months as we come closer to the mainnet merge.

On Sunday, March 27 it climbed up to $3,300 and moved above the 200-day EMA.

It successfully surpassed the September 21 lows and the February 2022 highs established them as a support. The ether also managed to break above the 21-period EMA on the weekly timeframe chart.

The new week started with a continuation of the uptrend. Bulls pushed the price of the ETH/USDT pair up to $3,425 during intraday, but the move was partially retraced later in the session.

On Tuesday, March 29, the biggest altcoin broke above the weekly horizontal resistance around $3,350 and stopped at $3,402 at the daily candle close.

The third day of the workweek came with a negligible price correction. ETH started to lag as the RSI entered the overbought area.

On Thursday, March 31 the ether formed a second-consecutive red candle on the daily chart and hit $3,276 to close below the January high and the weekly resistance line.

On Friday, it erased all losses from the previous two sessions and jumped back up to $3,455 adding 5.6 percent to its value.

The first day of the weekend came with a failed attempt to break above 200-Simple Moving Average. Bulls, however, managed to do that on Sunday as ETH closed above $3,500 for the first time since January 6, 2022.

What we are seeing midday on Monday is a pullback to the zone right below the mentioned SMA.

Leading Majors

• Terra (LUNA)

The Terra ecosystem continues to expand and now has more than $30 billion of user funds locked or staked on its platforms. This represents a 14 percent growth on a weekly basis while the LUNA coin hit a new all-time high.

The coin successfully broke above the solid horizontal resistance around the psychological level of $100 and hit $117 for the first time ever on Sunday, April 4. This resulted in a 20 percent jump in its total market cap as LUNA reached #8 on CoinGecko.

We can expect the $100 mark to be turned into support while $140 is the next possible target for bulls based on the Fibonacci extension indicator. What is more, the LUNA/USDT pair continues to trade in an uptrend corridor on the daily timeframe chart.

Still, it is already in an overbought area as per RSI and overall trading volumes are declining which might suggest a temporary reversal in the price direction.

Altcoin of the week

Our Altcoin of the week is Astar (ASTR). This relatively unknown cryptocurrency protocol is one of the leading smart contract platforms for Web Assembly and EVM on Polkadot. According to data from Defi Llama, the Astar Network is one of the fastest-growing in DeFi attracting $1.2. billion of user funds in the last month alone, which is an 84 percent growth.

The price of the ASTR/USDT pair went parabolic in the last few days surpassing the last all-time high. It added 90 percent to its valuation for the seven-day period and is now trading around $0.20. The coin is in price discovery mode with the current top around $0.30. Potential support at $0.14.

The main reason behind the recent rally is the announcement that at least 15 new projects will be live on the Astar network in April, most of them in the DeFi world.

ASTR is currently ranked at #189 on CoinGecko with a total market cap of approximately $432 million.