Bitcoin, Ether, Major Altcoins – Weekly Market Update December 20, 2021

The total crypto market cap lost $101 billion from its value for the last seven days and now stands at $2,14 billion. The top 10 coins were mostly in red for the same time period with Polkadot (DOT) losing 18.9 percent while Terra (LUNA) added 23.3. Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading at $46,100 while ether (ETH) is at $3,810.

BTC/USD

Bitcoin continued to trade below its 200-day EMA on the daily timeframe. The coin closed the trading session on Sunday, December 12 at $50,000, but the overall volumes were still relatively low compared to the days before the flash crash from early December. Additionally, the price action was looking similar to the one from the end of May to – beginning of June 2021 when BTC was caught in a place with a total absence of buying pressure.

On Monday, buyers were rejected at the mentioned dynamic indicator and the biggest cryptocurrency dropped 6.7 percent to close at the area around $46,680. The entire market was anxiously waiting for the results of the United States Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Committee Meeting (FOMC) on December 14/15. The main points were the continuation of the current bond-buying program and interest rate hike both of which were expected to impact risk assets like stocks and crypto.

The trading day on Tuesday, December 14 was a good one for bulls. BTC climbed up to $48,300 and avoided a new monthly low.

The third day of the workweek came with a push from buyers up to $49,500 even though the results from the mentioned meeting were seen as negative for the digital assets industry. Bitcoin ended the day at $48,800, below the previously solid short-term support at $49,000.

On Thursday, December 16, the BTC/USDT pair was rejected at the horizontal level and fell down to $47,600.

The last session of the workweek came with a drop to $46,100 as bitcoin closed on its lowest point since September 30, 2021. It lost the 200-day simple moving average.

The weekend of December 18-19 started with a short green candle to $46,900 on Saturday as some traders were looking for a “bottoming” signal. While it is true that the RSI indicator is on its lowest point since the end of May, it is worth mentioning that BTC fell 25 percent more while RSI was coming out of the oversold region thus forming a bullish divergence.

BTC remained flat on Sunday.

It is currently trading at $46,100 as of the time of writing.

ETH/USD

The Ethereum Project token ETH climbed up to $4,130 on Sunday, December 12 in its second consecutive day in green after hitting the diagonal trendline around $3,800. The coin also managed to stabilize above the weekly horizontal support and the 100-day EMA.

The ether fell 8 percent on Monday, breaking below the mentioned diagonal and horizontal supports and once again reaching the zone below $3,800.

The altcoin market was bleeding in much higher rates compared to Bitcoin and the mentioned FOMC meeting was keeping most of the traders on the sidelines.

The trading day on Tuesday, December 14 came with a quick jump up to $3,863 as volumes were starting to pick up the pace once again.

The Wednesday session was no different and the biggest altcoin drew a big green candle up to $4,024 driving the rest of the major cryptocurrencies up with it. Some of them posted double-digit gains. ETH went 9 percent up from its intraday low.

On Thursday, December 16 it was rejected at the 21-day EMA and fell down to $3,960, still above the weekly support.

The ETH/USDT pair once again lost both the diagonal uptrend and horizontal support on Friday after registering a daily low of $3,710 before closing a little bit higher – at $3,900.

The first day of the weekend came with a similar candle but in the opposite direction, but on Sunday the ether was again rejected in the zone above $3,900.

It is trading at $3,804 in the early hours of trading on December 20.

Leading Majors

• Terra (LUNA)

The fight for the last two positions in the Top 10 list is heating up even more now. Polkadot (DOT) is in freefall while LUNA and AVAX are flying high, rebounding from their most recent lows and looking to cement their place among the leading digital assets.

LUNA in particular is 44 percent up since finding its local bottom at $52 one week ago. The zone around that level is a previous high that acted as a short-term resistance on both the daily and weekly charts

What is next for buyers is to look for price stability in the current region above the $78 all-time high and aim for further extension up to the psychological level at $100.

On the other hand, given BTC’s bad performance and overall market instability, it is highly possible that we see the creation of a wide range in the $80-$50 area.

Altcoin of the week

Our Altcoin of the week is YFI (yearn.finance). One of the leading DeFi projects that spearheaded the original DeFi revolution back in 2020 started to show strength once again.

The YFI token climbed up to $31,770 last week to add 48 percent to its valuation after erasing the staggering 81 percent following its May 2021 peak. The yearn.finance project hit a one-year low at $18,380 at the end of last month and now it is looking to re-capture the important horizontal support around $31,000 where the Volume profile (VPVR) indicator’s point of control is currently located on the weekly timeframe chart.

The recent price rally is a direct result of the community-backed decision to improve the project’s tokenomics by initiating a massive token buyback.

The YFI/USDT pair peaked at $34,707 on December 18 and as of the time of writing is trading at $35,502. It moved up to #96 on CoinGecko’s Top 100 list with a total market cap of approximately $1.256 billion.

Weekly chart: