Bitcoin, Ether, Major Altcoins – Weekly Market Update August 8, 2022
The cryptocurrency market added $56 billion to its market cap during the last seven days and now stands at $1,135 billion. The top 10 coins were all in green for the same time period with Binance Coin (BNB) and Polkadot (DOT) being the biggest gainers with 16.2 and 7.4 percent of gains respectively. Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading at $24,153 while ether (ETH) is at 1,787.
BTC/USD
Bitcoin closed the trading day on Sunday, July 31 at $23,300 in its third consecutive day in red and right after peaking at $24,700 during the previous session. The zone above it represented a liquidity gap created during the market crash back at the beginning of June, so the biggest cryptocurrency was rejected at its lower boundary. The good news for buyers was that they were able to keep the price floating above the 200-day Moving Average (MA) on the weekly timeframe which is an important indicator if sellers or buyers are in control of the market.
The coin closed the previous seven-day period with a 3 percent increase. It was 17 percent up in July.
On Monday, the BTC/USDT pair remained flat after trading in the $22,800 – $23,500 range during the intraday session.
Things did not improve much for bulls on Tuesday and we saw bitcoin drop down to the zone below $23,000 for the first time since last week. It found some stability near the 21-day EMA.
There was a lot of volatility on Wednesday as BTC climbed up to $23,600 in the early hours of trading just to forfeit all gains in the evening. It closed the day at $22,815
On Thursday, August 4 the coin finally hit and closed at the mentioned short-term EMA, acting as a dynamic support area. It was the seventh straight losing session for the market leader, but the overall price action reminded of a bull flag consolidation pattern.
The coin reversed its direction on Friday by pumping 3.3 percent to $23,300. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) remained below the overbought zone while the 24-hour trading volumes hit the 14-day average line.
The weekend of August 6-7 started with a price pullback to $22,950 on Saturday. Then on Sunday, it formed a negligible green candle to close the week with less than a percent loss.
What we are seeing midday on Monday is a serious push from bulls to the area above $24,000.
ETH/USD
The price of the Ethereum project token ETH continued to be driven mainly by the upcoming switch to Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism (the so-called Merge).
It ended the previous seven-day period with a 5 percent increase in its fourth consecutive week in green.
On Sunday, July 31, bulls were finally rejected at the extremely stable horizontal support level of $1,700 and the ETH/USDT pair fell down to $1,686. Still, it ended the month of July with a 56 percent increase.
On Monday, the leading altcoin dropped down to $1,625 as the selling pressure was increasing. The move resulted in a 2.5 percent pullback.
The coin remained flat on Tuesday as neither bulls nor bears were able to take over control of the price action. ETH was trading in the $1,546 – $1,670 range throughout the day.
The mid-week session on Wednesday came with an early push from bears to $1,680. The momentum was not on their side and the coin eventually closed the day in red.
On Thursday, August 4, the downtrend continued but already looked exhausted. ETH reached $1,603 right above the 21-day EMA.
The bears gave up on Friday and the trend was reversed to the upside. The ether hit $1,733 and added 8 percent to its valuation. It was once again at resistance.
The first day of the weekend came with a small consolidating correction to $1,690, which was followed by a flat session on the last day of the week.
As of the time of writing this market update, the ETH/USDT pair is trading at $1,786 in a breakout attempt.
Leading Majors
- Avalanche (AVAX)
One of the best performing digital assets in the last seven days was the popular Layer 1 solution Avalanche. Once a Top 10 coin, AVAX lost a big part of its shine when the market correction deepened in the April-June 2022 period but is now once again on the rise.
The AVAX/USDT pair erased 90 percent of its market cap since the beginning of the bear market but managed to find its low at $14 in mid-June (right at the weekly order block from back in January 2021).
Bulls pushed the price all the way up to $30 once they were able to clear the solid resistance around $20. It was the zone where AVAX peaked during the first “pump” after the market reversal in late June.
What we can expect from the Avalanche protocol is to re-visit the $37 mark as there is practically no significant resistance on the way on both the daily and weekly timeframes. Support in the $20-$22 area.
In the meantime, the Total Value Locked (TVL) on the Avalanche chain continues to struggle, losing more than 4 percent on a monthly basis, but still somehow manages to be the 4th biggest chain as per data from DefiLlama.
Altcoin of the week
Our Altcoin of the week is FLOW (FLOW). It is the native coin of the developer-friendly Flow layer one blockchain which is often promoted as the new generation flexible protocol that can support multiple applications without sacrificing transaction speed or security.
The FLOW/USDT pair added 35 percent during the last week of trading making it the biggest gainer in the Top 100 list on CoinGecko.
As of the time of writing this market update, it is 167 percent up for the period since mid-June when it hit its multi-month bottom.
The main reason behind the pump is the recently announced NFT expansion by the META company, which is being powered by the FLOW blockchain mainly.
Next resistance at the 21 EMA on Weekly (around $3.60) and then the daily/weekly horizontal resistance around $5. Support right below $2.5.
FLOW is currently ranked at #30 with a total market cap of approximately $3.1 billion.
