Bitcoin, Ether, Major Altcoins – Weekly Market Update June 20, 2022
The cryptocurrency market erased $47 billion from its market cap in the last seven days and now stands at $914 billion. The top 10 coins showed mixed results for the same time period with Bitcoin (BTC) losing 22 percent while Solana (SOL) added 16.2 percent. Bitcoin is currently trading at $20,760 while ether (ETH) is at 1,152.
BTC/USD
Bitcoin closed the trading day on Sunday, June 12 at $26,554 on its sixth consecutive day in red after the failed attempt from bulls to surpass the upper boundary of the trading range. Instead, this led to a break below the support zone and a significant increase in long position liquidations.
The new week started with fresh new lows as BTC reached the sub-$25,000 area for the first time since December 2020. To be more precise, bears were able to drag the price down to $22,350, which caused a 16 percent correction.
The digital assets market was in freefall just like traditional markets as the United States inflation and CPI data continued to disappoint and investors were offloading their risk assets from their portfolios in a search of a way to protect their funds.
On Tuesday, June 14, the BTC/USDT pair hit $20,909 during intraday, but somehow managed to avoid another double-digit losing session and closed the daily candle at $22,150.
The mid-week trading on Wednesday was again marked by extreme volatility across all risk asset markets. The biggest cryptocurrency, in particular, hit the lower line of the long-term monthly uptrend channel near $20,135 bouncing back up to $22,620 in the evening.
On Thursday, the coin started moving South again, dropping another 9.6 percent as there was no sign of a bottom yet. It remained flat on Friday, close to the lower boundary of the monthly uptrend channel.
The weekend of June 18-19 started with an ugly 7 percent drop to $17,600 on Saturday.
Many market participants started to re-enter the market pointing out this as the long-expected capitulation candle.
On Sunday, the market turned green and BTC rallied all the way up to $20,560. The relief bounce continues on the first day of the new week.
ETH/USD
The Ethereum project token ETH was one of the worst-performing crypto assets and it is no wonder given the fact a big part of the DeFi protocols are using it as collateral, so the series of liquidations and force selling affected its price. This, in combination with the Bearish Pennant formation on the daily timeframe chart, resulted in a catastrophic reversal to the downside after a period of trading in a range.
On Monday, June 13 we saw the ETH/USDT pair trading below $1,200 for the first time since January 2021 losing 16 percent of its value. The coin briefly touched the $1,169 mark as many were wondering if we are not going to see a triple-digit ETH in the coming days.
The selloff continued on Tuesday as bulls were in full capitulation mode. The DeFi giant Celsius and Three Arrows Capital – one of the largest crypto hedge funds were both on the brink of a collapse due to the severe market conditions and the non-stop pressure against their liquidation levels. The ether remained flat after a super volatile session.
On Wednesday, the United States Federal Reserve (FED) announced a fresh new 0.75 basis points rate hike, which was more or less in line with the expectations. The market reacted positively and the ether closed in green, at $1,236
However, the bullish momentum was not there anymore and the one-day long rally was fully retraced on Thursday when the coin reached $1,066 entering the January 2021 zone of support for the first time since then.
The Friday session was relatively calm with no significant price changes. ETH remained close to the upper boundary of the horizontal support.
The selloff continued on the first day of the weekend when bears pushed the price down to $873. The market crash led to a series of liquidations on the major exchanges.
The Ethereum token partially recovered in the afternoon and even turned green on Sunday, eventually closing the week at $1,124. This of course was bad news for late sellers who got immediately liquidated.
What we are seeing on Monday is a continuation of the reversal to the upside.
Leading Majors
- Solana (SOL)
Solana is often criticized for its lack of decentralization and the regular downtimes which are unacceptable in the Web3 world, but when it comes to traders’ favorites – it comes up almost immediately as one of the first names they mention.
The coin almost hit its July 2021 low last week but since then is moving up only, adding the stunning 39 percent if we include today’s session making it the best performing digital asset in the Top 10 list.
It is now back at #9 with a market cap of approximately $12.3 billion. Bulls will most probably attempt a break above the 21-day EMA on the daily timeframe chart and the horizontal resistance near $40 while bears will be hoping for rejection there and a continuation of the downtrend.
Altcoin of the Week
Our Altcoin of the week is Basic Attention Token (BAT). This digital advertising protocol made an unexpected reversal to the upside last week which continues into Monday.
BAT was previously strongly correlated to the price movement of the popular metaverse tokens like MANA and SAND but is now outperforming them both with a significant margin.
The BAT/USDT pair added 12 percent to its valuation during the last seven days, bouncing up from a year and a half low ($0.264).
Coming into Monday, it is trading at $0.38 or 12 percent higher compared to yesterday.
The coin is currently ranked at #76 on CoinGecko with a total market capitalization of approximately $577 million.
BAT hit old support on the weekly timeframe and is now on its way to test the daily timeframe resistance in the $0.41-$0.45 area, above the 21-day EMA.
