Bitcoin, Ether, Major Altcoins – Weekly Market Update February 22, 2021
The total crypto market cap added $144 billion to its value for the last seven-days and now stands at $1,602 billion. The top 10 coins were mostly in red for the same time period with Chainlink (LINK) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) losing 10.4 and 12.6 percent while Binance Coin (BNB) added 116 percent to its value. By the time of writing bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $53,877, ether (ETH) is at $1,785.
BTC/USD
Bitcoin closed the previous trading week with a 25 percent of price increase. During the intraday session on Sunday, February 14, the coin hit the $49,667 mark, which was then sitting at the diagonal uptrend line (acting resistance).
It was the fourth time in the last five days for BTC to reach this mid-term resistance and traders were referring to it as the next potential trigger point for a further price increase.
The new seven-day period started with a short pullback to $47,881 on Monday. The BTC/USD pair was consolidating in preparation for its next leg up as the psychological level at $50,000 was now closer than ever.
The second day of the week came with another attempt to break the mentioned diagonal resistance. This time, buyers pushed the price up to $50,558 before closing the session at $49,178.
Still, bitcoin finally broke $50k while most of the altcoins were trying to find their bottom after a three-day-long correction. The main factor behind the double-digit pullbacks was the fact market participants were cashing out their positions to chase the biggest cryptocurrency while it was searching for new highs.
The mid-week session on Wednesday was when BTC finally surpassed the upper limit of the corridor. It skyrocketed all the way up to $52,190, adding 6 percent to its market capitalization.
On Thursday, October 18, the coin retraced a little bit as profit-taking activities started to kick in. It formed a short red candle to $51,538.
The last day of the workweek came with another big step up for BTC, which resulted in yet another 8.6 percent of increase and the new highest point of trading versus USDT -$56,384.
The first day of the weekend was highly volatile. The biggest cryptocurrency was moving in the $57,629 – $53,940 area but remained flat and stable at the end of the session.
Then on Sunday, it continued to march North, fueled by the ever-increasing retail trading interest. The coin peaked at $58,351.
What we are seeing midday on Monday is a significant correction in comparison with what we had for BTC in February. It registered a daily low of $53,445.
4-hour chart:
ETH/USD
The Ethereum Project token ETH reached an all-time high of $1,875 on Saturday, February 13. The coin started correcting its price in the evening part of the session as some traders started to cash in profits. The coin was taking a breath before preparing for the long-expected attempt to break the psychological level of $2,000. It ended the seven-day period at $1,802 or 11.5 percent up compared to where it was the same time a week ago.
On Monday, the ETH/USD pair continued to slide. It dropped as low as $1,660 as the entire altcoin market was severely bleeding. Still, the coin managed to recover during the second part of the trading day and used the $1,775 level as support to close the daily candle at $1,780.
The ether remained flat on Tuesday and even though it was moving up and down in the $1,720 – $1,820 zone, it avoided further losses and stabilized in the support area.
The third day of the workweek came with another run to $1,850. The level was now acting as horizontal resistance. This move resulted in 3.6 percent being added to ETH’s valuation.
On Thursday, February 18, and Friday, the 19th, the ETH/USD pair continued to march upwards. It was on a four-day long winning streak when it hit its fresh high at $1,975.
The weekend trading was, as expected when ETH stormed towards the psychological level of $2k. It peaked at $2,036 on Saturday, but could not hold its position and corrected its price down to $1,915 later in the day.
On Sunday, it moved up to $1,937, but could not move above the last registered peak.
What we are seeing on Monday is a flash crash even in options expiration week. The unexpected selloff is impacting all coins with most of them registering double-digit losses.
4-hour chart:
Leading majors
- Binance Coin (BNB)
BNB captured the third spot on CoinGecko’s Top 100 list after it added another 116 percent to its valuation last week. The search for cheaper alternatives of the Ethereum based Uniswap and Sushiswap decentralized platforms speeded up the raise of the Binance Chain native token.
The next big target in front of the BNB/USDT pair is to re-take $300. In the meantime, $250 remains as solid support.
4-hour chart
- Cardano (ADA)
ADA finally broke the $1 mark on Saturday and is now very close to surpass Tether (USDT) in terms of market capitalization. Both Polkadot and Cardano are joining the battle for the best blockchain hosting platform inching closer to the troubled Ethereum and BSC (Binance Chain)
The coin peaked at $1.2 during the weekend so naturally that will be the next target upwards. Down, we expect the previous resistance line at $0.95 to be turned into support.
4-hour chart
Altcoin of the Week
One of the best-performing crypto assets in the last seven days was Ravencoin (RVN). The popular peer-2-peer blockchain project, which allows users to tokenize items and create their very own private tokens, grew by 180 percent for the period. What is more – the coin is 1,000 percent up on a monthly basis.
The most probable reason for the recent surge in the price is the increased interest in real world asset tokenization platforms and the search of decentralized alternatives for the legacy market trading providers.
RVN is now placed at #54 on the CoinGecko’s Top 100 list with a market capitalization of approximately $1,685 billion. It peaked at $0.272 on Saturday, February 20 and as of the time of writing is trading at $0.17 against USDT on Binance:
