Bitcoin, Ether, Major Altcoins – Weekly Market Update August 16, 2021

The total crypto market cap added $198 billion to its value for the last seven days and now stands at $2,043 billion. The top 10 coins were all in green for the same time period with XRP (XRP) and Solana (SOL) leading the pack with 64.5 and 63.2 percent of price increase respectively. Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading at $47,441 while ether (ETH) is at $3,292.

BTC/USD

Bitcoin closed the trading day on Sunday, August 8 with a red candle down to $43,818. The coin erased 1.8 percent of its value for the day after peaking at $45,470 in the early hours of trading. Still, the biggest cryptocurrency ended the seven-day period with a 9.7 percent of price increase after breaking above the 21-period EMA on the weekly timeframe.

On Monday, the BTC/USDT pair jumped by 5.4 percent and reached $46,513 for the first time since May 16. The RSI indicator was already pointing in the direction of trend exhaustion, confirmed by bearish divergence on the daily timeframe.

The Tuesday session saw bitcoin hitting $46,763 in the morning. Buyers, however, were not able to keep up with the momentum and lost control of the price action later in the day. The coin eventually closed with a loss at $45,607 but not before falling as low as $44,629.

The mid-week session on Wednesday came with a second consecutive day in red. Buyers were once again rejected at the $46,700 level, which resulted in a pullback down to $45,455.

On Thursday, August 12, we saw another highly volatile session with bears trying to break the price below the 200-day EMA. Bitcoin closed the day with a 2.5 percent loss but managed to find stability at the weekly open near $43,850.

The last day of the workweek came with a reversal to the upside. BTC skyrocketed all the way up to $47,800 completely erasing all losses from the last few sessions with a 7.6 percent jump.

The weekend of August 14-15 started with a short retrace to $47,100 on Saturday which was even deeper in the morning when the coin visited $46,000.

Then on Sunday, the BTC/USDT pair hit the 200-day EMA at $45,400 but managed to once again recover later in the session by ending the week at $47,000.

What we are seeing midday on Monday is a short green candle to $47,300.

ETH/USD

The Ethereum Project token ETH dropped down to $3,010 on Sunday, August 8. The coin experienced its first price pullback since August 3 as the rally started to lose momentum. The leading altcoin and major decentralized application protocol added the stunning 17.7 percent to its valuation on a weekly basis and was already trading above its highest ever monthly candle close.

On Monday, the ether formed the exact same candle, but in the opposite direction, which helped it erase all the losses from the previous session and stabilize around $3,164.

The mentioned level was slowly becoming a major horizontal resistance and on Tuesday bulls failed to break above it for the second time in three days. It is worth noting that the ETH/USDT pair was extremely volatile, moving up and down the $3,232 – $3,042 range during intraday.

The third day of the workweek started with a solid upward movement in the morning that pushed the price up to $3,272. The trading volumes and momentum, however, were not strong enough to support a breakout and the coin quickly retraced down to $3,158 in the evening.

On Thursday, August 12, the ETH token fell to $3,040 or 3.4 percent, but just like Bitcoin was able to find support near the weekly open mark.

Bulls could not be intimidated in any way by the short correction and ETH jumped to $3,320 on the next day – a 9.1 percent increase in just one day.

The first day of the weekend came with a short red candle to $3,263, which was followed by a similar candle, but in the opposite direction on Sunday.

The ether is trading at $3,290 as of the time of writing.

Leading Majors

• Cardano (ADA)

The Cardano developers agreed to set the smart contract launch date to September,12 (the so-called Alonzo smart contract hard fork main net launch) – an announcement that pushed the price of ADA on track for a new all-time high.

The coin registered six consecutive days in green and by August, 14 already reached $2.25. The coin added 52 percent for the last seven days and moved up to #3 on CoinGecko’s Top 100 list.

We can probably expect a short consolidation in the form of a pullback before the bulls attempt to break the $2.3 mark – Cardano’s highest ever weekly candle close. If it follows the steps of Ethereum, the growth will continue into September.

Altcoin of the Week

Our Altcoin of the week is IoTeX (IOTX). This little-known blockchain-based Internet of Things platform stormed into the Top 100 list thanks to the stunning 273 percent growth registered on a seven-day basis.

The IOTX token is having its best month since its 2019 launch and is now trading approximately 643 percent higher compared to its June 2021 low.

The company reported a 600% growth in wallets and network activity for July and outlined series of product updates, partnerships, and listings in their latest report.

The IOTX/USDT pair peaked at $0.15, a new all-time high, on June 12 and is currently trading at $0.094 on Binance with a market cap of $920 million.