Bitcoin, ether, major altcoins. Weekly market update Jan. 23
The cryptocurrency market added $71 billion to its market cap during the last seven days and now stands at $1,049 billion. The top 10 coins were all in green for the same period. Bitcoin (BTC) and cardano (ADA) are the biggest gainers, with 9.7% and 8.2%, respectively. BTC currently trades at $22,844 while ether (ETH) is at 1,625.
BTC/USD
Bitcoin closed the trading week of Jan. 9-15 at $20,880 – the last formed lower high on the weekly timeframe chart, which was the next major resistance in front of bulls.
The coin also hit the 200-day EMA for the first time since April 6, 2022, which ended its 7-day-long streak of green candles.
The price rally resulted in a 22% increase on a weekly basis – the biggest one-week jump since February 2021.
On Monday, Jan. 16, the new trading period started with a continuation of the uptrend. During intraday, BTC touched the $21,500 mark and closed the session at $21,200. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) was already in the overbought zone as the 24-hour trading volumes continued to be stable above the 14-day average.
Buyers attempted to consolidate and push the price above $22,000 but were rejected right above the mentioned EMA, closing Tuesday flat.
The third day of the workweek came with high volatility and drop to $20,673 in the evening as the United States Department of Justice charged the Hong Kong-registered exchange Bitzlato with money laundering in a major announcement that colored the market in the red.
Early on Thursday, the BTC/USDT pair struggled with the 200-day EMA and the closest and most important short-term horizontal resistance – $20,900. At the same time, the price stabilized above the 21-period EMA and the long-term uptrend diagonal support. We witnessed the creation of a short green candle to $20,950.
The Friday session was slightly different. Bitcoin rallied all the way up to $22,740, reaching the long-term diagonal resistance for the first time since April 2022. Another 7.5% was added to its valuation.
The weekend of Jan. 21-22 started with a push to the monthly resistance line at $23,300 on Saturday. The rejection there resulted in a pullback.
Then on Sunday, the coin remained flat in the above-mentioned area.
What we are seeing early in the new week is a small green candle on the daily chart.
ETH/USD
The Ethereum Project token ETH added 20% to its valuation for Jan. 9-15. The coin successfully broke out of the Bearish Pennant formation, fully invalidating it, and also managed to surpass all major EMAs on the daily timeframe chart.
On Monday, Jan. 16, the ETH/USDT pair formed its ninth consecutive green candle and increased to $1,580. The ether even managed to briefly climb above the $1,600 mark, the second-lowest high formed on the weekly chart before the market changed its direction.
The Tuesday session dropped to $1,560 as the RSI reverted to the downside while the trading volumes remained slightly below the 14-day average.
The mid-week session on Wednesday came with another rejection at $1,600 – the fourth in the last five trading days. The leading altcoin was highly volatile, moving in the $1,600-$1,500 area before closing at $1,511 at the 200-day EMA.
On Thursday, Jan. 19, the ether ended its consolidation phase with a 3% increase to $1,550.
The last day of the workweek was no different. ETH climbed above the next lower high on the chart and reached $1,658, corresponding to a 7% increase.
On the first day of the weekend, bulls finally managed to touch the monthly horizontal resistance at $1,680 but suffered a rejection which drove the price down to $1,630.
On Sunday, the biggest altcoin remained flat in a potential consolidation before the next leg up.
As of the time of writing this market update on Monday, there are no significant price changes.
Leading Majors
- Curve DAO (CRV)
Curve gained popularity during the so-called DeFi summer of 2020, which more or less triggered the last bull run. It is currently the fourth biggest protocol by total value locked (TVL) across all major blockchains, with more than $4.5 billion of user funds being used on its decentralized exchange and automated market maker (AMM) pools and staking services.
The CRV token was one of the best-performing digital assets during the last seven days. It grew by 28%, making it a total of 100% for the last three weeks.
The driving factors behind the surge in the price are unknown but can be related to the upcoming release of the crvUSD stablecoin and the renewed interest in token swaps and pool usage.
The CRV/USDT pair successfully broke above the last lower high on the weekly chart and surpassed both the 21-period EMA and the long-term diagonal resistance line on that timeframe.
Next for bulls will be to push the price up to the next resistance area – $1.4-$1.5.
Potential support might be formed at the psychological level of $1.
Curve DAO is currently ranked at #58 with a market cap of $795 million.
Altcoin of the week
Our Altcoin of the week is Optimism (OP). The Layer-2 blockchain built on Ethereum continues to grow in terms of TVL and token utilization.
The Optimism network was the fastest-growing chain during the last 30 days but continues to lag behind its main competitor – Arbitrum.
Although the network fees on Optimism are paid in ETH, the protocol has its native OP token that gives users special voting rights and other benefits.
On top of that, it is used in different farming pools and staking initiatives across the DeFi protocols.
The OP/USDT pair made a new all-time high by hitting a weekly high of $2.5 after adding 19% for the last seven-day period. It is now in price exploration, with the nearest support in the $1.8-$1.9 area. It is worth noting that the OP tokens currently in circulation are just 5%of the total supply.
OP is ranked at #87 on CoinGecko with a total market cap of $485 million.
