Bitcoin, Ether, Major Altcoins – Weekly Market Update February 15, 2021
The total crypto market cap added $207 billion to its value for the last seven-days and now stands at $1,467 billion. The top 10 coins were all in green for the same time period with Binance Coin (BNB) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) leading the pack with a 102 and 62 percent increase respectively. By the time of writing bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $47,847, ether (ETH) is at $1,790.
BTC/USD
The most valuable crypto asset corrected its price down to $38,868 on Sunday, February 7 after failing to close above the $39,150-$39,300 zone on the daily chart for the second straight session.
On Monday, the coin was struggling to surpass the above-mentioned horizontal resistance, but some solid fundamentals helped it gain the required momentum. Elon Musk’s car manufacturer company Tesla officially announced they acquired $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin and are planning to make the leading cryptocurrency official payment method for their cars.
The news resulted in a 19 percent increase in the price of BTC in less than an hour as bulls pushed it to a new all-time high of $46,764.
The second day of the workweek was as intense as the first one with bitcoin climbing further to $48,237 during intraday before dropping back down to $45,000 in the afternoon. Still, it ended the day almost flat, at $46,528.
On Wednesday, February 10, the entire cryptocurrency market turned red, experiencing another typical flash crash moment. The BTC/USD pair in particular erased $1,700 from its capitalization and closed at $44,840.
The correction did not last long and during the Thursday session bitcoin initiated a recovery hitting a new all-time high at $48,687 where the upper boundary of the uptrend channel was situated. The move resulted in a 7 percent price increase.
The last trading session of the week came with another run to the mentioned diagonal line. BTC reached $49,020, but could not keep up with the pace the obvious need for consolidation caused it to form a short red candle to $47,353.
The weekend of February 13-14 started with a second consecutive losing session for BTC on Saturday as it dropped lower, to $47,215. It is worth noting that the coin was again extremely volatile, trading in the wide range between $48,261 and $46,132 during the day.
On the 4-hour chart, the leading cryptocurrency was very close to finalizing the rising wedge pattern, which usually points to an exhaustion of the uptrend.
On Sunday, the BTC/USD pair once again surprised analysts and traders by almost reaching another big number – $50,000 (stopped at $49,740).
The rapid increase in price, however, was not sustainable enough and on Monday morning we saw the price plummeting to $45,929.
As of the time of writing, BTC is hovering around $47,850.
4-hour chart:
ETH/USD
The Ethereum Project token ETH started pulling back after reaching a new all-time high of $1,761 on February 5. In its second consecutive session on the negative territory, the coin fell all the way down to $1,487 during intraday trading on Sunday, February 7, and eventually ended the week at $1,611. This corresponded to a 22 percent of growth on a weekly basis.
On Monday, the ether, which was also fueled by the Tesla news, skyrocketed to $1,776 during midday then lost few dollars of its value and ended the day at $1,750, or 8.6 percent higher.
The Tuesday session was quite a volatile one for ETH as it was moving in the wide range between its new highest point of $1,822 and $1,709. In fact, the whole altcoin market was moving in a price discovery territory.
Still, the coin drew a short green candle body to $1,769 on the daily chart.
The mid-week session on Wednesday was again a volatile one. ETH traded in the $1,680 – $1,84 zone before closing with a loss at $1,740.
On Thursday, February 11, the ETH/USD pair resumed the uptrend by climbing up to $1,787. The move was followed by another solid green session and a new highest point reached at $1,870 on Friday. The coin grew by 6 percent for the two days combined.
The first day of the weekend was when ETH started moving south. It fell to $1,817, but what is most important is that sellers managed to push its price all the way down to $1,766 during intraday.
On Sunday, it continued to slide finding its weekly close at $1,803.
The red wave was extended to Monday and as of the time of writing the ether is trading at $1,790, after hitting a low of $1,656 during the morning part of the session.
4-hour chart:
Leading Majors
- Binance Coin (BNB)
BNB, the native token of Binance’s blockchain network continued to rally last week. It reached a new all-time high of $148.5 on Wednesday, February 10, and registered a combined 102 percent of growth for the period.
We already have a very well-defined trading range between the horizontal resistance of $136 and the $117 support. Both of these are visible on hourly and daily charts.
Current price: $131,6
4-hour chart:
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
The most popular BTC fork is making its way up to new mid-term highs since it broke above the short-term EMAs almost two weeks ago. This week its price rose by 62 percent as traders were starting to look back at the big legacy coins like LTC and ETC.
The next level up should be $780 while $686 provides the required stability as horizontal support.
Current price: $713.
4-hour chart:
Altcoin of the Week
This week’s pick is The Graph (GRT). This decentralized, open-source indexing protocol for blockchain data registered a stunning 134 percent of increase for the last seven days. The accumulated growth on monthly basis is close to 596 percent.
The coin peaked at $2.76 on Friday, February 12, and reached #32 on CoinGecko’s Top 100 list with a total market capitalization of approximately $2.55 billion.
The Graph’s mainnet went live in December 2020, which combined with the rising demand for open APIs for blockchain data, and the growing community, attributed to the recent surge in the price of the GRT token.
The GRT/USDT pair is currently trading at $2.32 on Binance:
4-hour chart:
