Bitcoin, Ether, Major Altcoins – Weekly Market Update May 9, 2022
The total crypto market cap erased $207 billion from its value in the last seven days and now stands at $1.53 trillion. The top 10 coins were all in red for the same time period with Terra (LUNA) and Solana (SOL) being the worst performers losing 26.6 and 16.6 percent of losses respectively. Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading at $33,250 while ether (ETH) is at 2,431.
BTC/USD
Bitcoin finished the month of April with a 17.5 percent loss, breaking below the $42,000 support and the 21-period EMA. Looking at the monthly timeframe chart we could clearly see a continuing downtrend, with decreasing volumes while the Relative Strength Indicator remained close to its mid-point.
On Sunday, May 1, BTC bounced back up from its $37,400 low as bulls were able to keep the price floating above the lower end of the long-term uptrend corridor, thus avoiding further selloff.
The new seven-day period started with a solid push to $39,200 in the early hours of trading on Monday but the biggest cryptocurrency was rejected at the newly formed short-term diagonal and closed the Monday session flat.
On Tuesday, bears re-tested again the $37,500 low, which resulted in a 2.2 percent loss for the day as the trading volumes on a 24-hour basis were starting to pick up phase and were larger than the average for the last few weeks.
The mid-week trading on Wednesday came with a sudden increase in the price of BTC. It climbed all the way up to $39,640, closing right at the 21-day EMA while adding 5.3 percent to its valuation. The rally was most probably caused by the comments made by the US Federal Reserve (FED) chairman Jay Powell that an interest rate hike of more than 0.50 percent per meeting is not planned for the moment, which was considered by many to be slightly more dovish comment than expected.
On Thursday, May 5, the BTC/USDT pair registered one of its biggest one-day losses for 2022. It erased 8 percent in a single session and hit a daily low of $35,720 before closing the day at $36,560.
The Friday session brought no change in the trading direction. Bitcoin ended the day at $35,960 for the first time since January 2022.
The weekend of May 7-8 started with a third consecutive red candle on the daily chart on Saturday. Then on Sunday bears were still in full control of the market and successfully pushed the price down to $34,074.
BTC is currently trading even lower, at $33,260 at the time of writing this market update.
ETH/USD
The Ethereum Project token ETH also ended the month of April with a huge loss. It erased 16.7 percent from its market cap and lost both the weekly support line around $3,000 and the long-term uptrend corridor.
The coin kept trading in a bear flag formation on the daily chart and on Monday, May 2 it reached $2,847 in its second green candle in a row.
The ether was one of the top picks for investors mainly because of the upcoming merge that will see the Ethereum blockchain migrate to a Proof of Stake consensus. As per the on-chain data, whales started to accumulate close to the January and March lows.
On Tuesday, the ETH/USDT pair corrected its price down to $2,780, but keep trading above the lower end of the mid-term uptrend corridor (in the already mentioned bear flag formation).
The third day of the workweek came with a surprising 5.8 percent jump and a close near the 21-day EMA at $2,938. The biggest and most popular altcoin continued to move in the upward direction.
Bulls, however, were rejected around the mentioned moving average and fully retraced the gains on Thursday, May 5. The ether lost 6.3 percent and finally lost the diagonal support.
The Friday session was no different and the ETH token once again dropped below the long-term uptrend corridor by closing the session at $2,690.
The first day of the weekend came with a continuation of the downtrend and a new monthly low – $2,641.
On Sunday, bulls were still absent as we saw the price of ETH hit the $2,481 mark before ending the week at $2,519.
The coin is currently trading at $2,426.
Leading Majors
- Polkadot (DOT)
Another Ethereum competitor, Polkadot has been underperforming in the last few weeks despite the positive news that came out of the ecosystem recently.
The launch of the XCM messaging system that enables the uninterrupted token transfer between the different parachains on Polkadot without the need of a bridge and the rapid growth of the Astar ecosystem did not help DOT avoid a freefall.
The DOT/USDT pair lost 13.8 percent during the last seven-day period and is now 34 percent down since breaking below the lower boundary of the bear flag pattern on the weekly chart. The targeted bottom from this trading pattern is around $9.5. At the same time, DOT is still to reach its Head and Shoulders target which is projected to be somewhere around $12.5.
The DOT token is currently ranked at #13 on CoinGecko with a market cap of approximately $13.7 billion, 4.8 billion away from the 10th spot.
Altcoin of the week
Our altcoin of the week is Tron (TRX). One of the most popular cryptocurrencies from the 2017 bull run, Tron is among the few digital assets to move in the upward direction in the last few weeks.
The TRX/USDT pair added 25 percent to its market cap for the last seven-day period and is already 72 percent up since it bottomed at $0.05 at the end of January 2022. It successfully surpassed the 21-period EMA on the weekly timeframe and is currently trying to break above the resistance zone around $0.09 on the shorter, 1-day chart.
The coin is still 50 percent below its all-time high but is flying on the wings of the recently announced TRON blockchain stablecoin USDD (Decentralized USD) that was launched on May 5. USDD is a project of the TRON DAO and is circulating as a TRC token on the TRON blockchain while being pegged to the U.S. dollar.
TRX is currently ranked at #18 with a total market cap of approximately $8.4 billion. It is trading at $0.084.
