Top cryptocurrencies to watch this week: DOGE, MATIC, XEC

Despite last week’s bearish setting, top cryptocurrencies like Dogecoin (DOGE) and eCash (XEC) recorded impressive gains. Polygon (MATIC), however, underperformed.

The global cryptocurrency market cap lost $140 billion in valuation, dropping to $2.49 trillion as of Sunday, Match 24.

Here’s a look back at the current events involving this week’s top cryptocurrencies.

DOGE breaks multi-week downtrend

Dogecoin began this week with a bearish footing, witnessing a combined 17.16% drop on March 18 and 19. With this discouraging decline, the cryptocurrency slipped from the $0.15 price territory to retest the early March lows at $0.1252. 

While this bearish extended to the third day of the week, DOGE quickly turned the tide with a recovery campaign as the broader market showed remarkable strength. The crypto asset eventually reclaimed the $0.15 psychological price threshold, closing March 20 with an impressive 18.06% gain.

Despite the rest of the market witnessing a correction in the days that followed, DOGE retained its uptrend, rallying to a weekly high of $0.1597, as it made a push toward breaking above the downward trend line that has served as resistance to its upsurge throughout this month. This upsurge coincided with Coinbase’s move to extend DOGE futures trading.

Dogecoin slipped into the downtrend when it dropped from the March 5 high of $0.2064. The asset first aimed to breach the trend line on March 14, but faced opposition that made this push unsuccessful. However, the latest attempt appears to have yielded good results.

DOGE breached the downtrend on March 24 but faced a drop that saw it retest the trend line to establish robust support. Following this retest, the token pushed above the trend line with confidence, as it changed hands at the $0.17 territory.

Dogecoin is up 11.5% this week when the rest of the market witnesses bearish trends.

MATIC drops below $1 amid 9% decline

Polygon followed the trend of the broader market, shedding $1.1 billion from its market cap amid a decline that saw it break below pivotal psychological support levels.

Like Dogecoin and the rest of the market, Polygon started the week on unfavorable grounds, recording two days of consecutive losses on March 18 and 19, with a combined loss of 14.87%. MATIC eventually gave up the $1 territory amid this decline, closing March 19 at $0.9317.

The next day introduced some good fortunes, as the asset leveraged the market-wide recovery to reclaim the $1 price. However, the days that followed marked the difference between Polygon and Dogecoin. The former dropped with the rest of the market over the next two days, forfeiting the $1 threshold.

MATIC is now looking to again recover this territory, but sharp opposition from the bears has slowed down its growth. Despite recording a mild intraday win on March 23, DOGE continues to trade below $1, with a 9.42% decline this week.

XEC sees massive 26% intraday gain

While eCash followed the trajectory set by Bitcoin for the broader market throughout this week, its turning point came up on March 24, when it recorded its second-highest intraday gain of the year. 

Like the rest of the market, XEC also saw a bearish start to the week, before witnessing a recovery on March 20 in an 11.08% gain. However, the cryptocurrency consolidated between March 22 and 23, while the broader market experienced a second round of selloffs. 

Amid this consolidation, XEC sternly defended the $0.00005 zone, looking to leverage it for the next run. This plan was successful, as eCash’s price shot up by as much as 26.32% on March 23, allowing the crypto asset to clinch a two-week high of $0.00006919 before seeing a mild correction.

Despite a 2.48% drop today, eCash has retained most of the gains picked up on March 23. The asset has held up well above the $0.00006 threshold, changing hands at $0.00006305 with a 15.2% gain this week.