Bitcoin, ether, major altcoins. Weekly Market update Jan. 16, 2023

The cryptocurrency market added $127 billion to its market cap during the last seven days and now stands at $979 billion. The top 10 coins were all in green for the same period. Bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH) are the biggest gainers with 22% and 20% gains, respectively. Bitcoin is currently trading at $20,820, while ether is at 1,544.

BTC/USD

Bitcoin closed the Jan. 2-8 trading week at $17,190, above the $16,800-$17,000 short-term resistance for the first time since mid-December. The move resulted in a 3.2% of price increase weekly.

On Jan. 9, the new seven-day trading period started with a push above the mentioned horizontal obstacle as buyers were looking to extend the uptrend further up. BTC hit $17,400 early in the day but easily gave up the gains later in the session.

On Tuesday, we saw the coin pump above $17,400 again as another 1.7% was added and the price was already stable above the range mid-zone.

The third day of the workweek came with a fourth consecutive green candle on the daily chart for the biggest cryptocurrency. It surpassed the range high at $17,600 and was already looking at the former multi-timeframe support in the $18,500-$18,800 area.

The previously-discussed bull flag on the weekly chart was invalidated and the 24-hour trading volumes were already stable above the 14-day average. Thanks to the good CPI inflation data from the United States, bitcoin broke out of the range and closed the Thursday session at $18,830 with a 5% price increase.

The trading day on Friday was no different and the coin continued to rally. This time it hit $19,930 and moved well into the former weekly support area. The 21-period EMA on the 1-week chart was also broken.

The weekend of Jan. 14-15 started with a push to the 200-day EMA on Saturday, right below the $21,000 mark. Bitcoin was going parabolic testing the mentioned level for the second time since October.

On Sunday, the coin remained flat. It is still relatively stable in the early trading hours on Jan. 16.

ETH/USD

ETH closed the week of January 2-8 at $1,290, which corresponded to a 7.5% increase on a seven-day basis – the biggest one-week increase since the end of Oct. 22.

On Monday, Jan. 9, the coin moved above the $1,300 mark and added 3 more percent as the mid $1,300s was expected to be the next short-term obstacle for buyers.

The Tuesday session, however, was no different and the biggest altcoin continued to rally, breaking into the mentioned zone.

The mid-week trading on Wednesday came with a solid 5% push to $1,400. On the weekly timeframe, it already broke above the higher end of the Bear Pennant formation invalidating it and surpassing the range high.

The price of ether continued to surge on Thursday, hitting the mid-term diagonal resistance on the daily chart.

The good economic data from the United States and the more dovish comments from the Federal Reserve members allowed risk assets to rally. BTC and ETH were the two receiving the biggest inflow.

The ETH/USDT pair moved above the mentioned diagonal on Friday and hit $1,450 for the first time since early November 2022. It also managed to stabilize above the short EMA on the 1-week chart and was looking to climb above the next major resistance zone on the chart – $1,530-$1,620.

The first day of the weekend came with a 7% increase to $1,540. Still, after seven consecutive days in green, it was time for proper consolidation.

The coin remained flat on Sunday and is trading at $1,544 as of the time of writing this market update on Monday.

Leading Majors

• Avalanche (AVAX)

AVAX was among the best-performing digital assets on the Top 100 list last week. The native token of the Avalanche layer 1 blockchain protocol added 40% to its market cap for the period and reached the $18.5 mark for the first time since early November 2022.

The main driving factor behind the price rally is the announced partnership between Ava Labs (the company building Avalanche) and Amazon Web Services, according to which the cloud-computing platform will offer full infrastructure and dApp support to the Avalanche blockchain allowing developers to launch a node and manage it on AWS easily.

The AVAX/USDT pair reacted instantly and the price skyrocketed above the last weekly high and the mid-term diagonal resistance on the bigger timeframe charts. It also broke into the formed horizontal support in the $15-$16 area and temporarily surpassed the 21-period EMA.

A potential pullback to $14 will help the token consolidate above the former resistance and the mentioned diagonal before making the next leg up.

Avalanche is currently ranked at #18 on CoinGecko with a total market cap of $5.12 billion.

Altcoin of the week

Our altcoin of the week is Aptos (APT). Aptos is an independent layer 1 blockchain solution built using the Move coding language. Former Diem contributors started the protocol after the Meta-backed project was canceled.

Aptos was heavily criticized after its main net launch in late 2022 as it didn’t live up to the expectations to deliver a highly scalable and fast solution. The price quickly erased 80% of its valuation before bottoming at $3 around Christmas.

The new year, however, has been generous to Aptos so far. The APT/USDT pair increased by 150% in less than three weeks.

In general, the Aptos ecosystem development and the renewed interest in the crypto market helped the altcoin rally. It is now close to its highest-ever weekly candle close at $9.8.

Looking at the daily chart, we can expect support and consolidation in the zone above $7, while $8 and $10 remain the next two targets for bulls.

Aptos is currently ranked at #39 with a market cap of $1.3 billion.

Below is the 1-D chart.