Crypto Weekly snapshot: Bitcoin flirts with $24,000; Ether holds $1,600

The crypto market experienced a mixed performance in trading after US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that inflation is beginning to ease. Interest rates have been raised by 0.25 per cent by the Federal Reserve. Bitcoin (BTC) surged 3.11 per cent to $23,788, while Ethereum (ETH) broke the $1,600 mark. BTC volume has been around $30.58 billion over the past 24 hours, up from 37.16 per cent in the last 24 hours.

Last week, BTC's price topped even the most optimistic price forecasts. After testing the $22,500 support on Feb 1st, Bitcoin gained 6.5 per cent in five hours and has been flirting with the $24,000 level ever since. It's also important to remember that Bitcoin's 40-day correlation to the S&P 500 remains above 75 per cent

Ether has been struggling with the $1,680 resistance since January 20. The ascending triangle pattern and improving investor sentiment in ETH derivatives are giving hope that Ether's price could reach $1,800 or higher by the end of February.

Traders will be watching if Ether bulls can sustain the price inside the bullish triangle formation over the next two weeks. If the macro environment allows, ETH derivatives are pointing to a possible rally towards $1,800. Meanwhile, Ethereum Foundation developer Parithosh Jayanthi announced that the “Zhejiang” public test net will be launched in February.

Technical Outlook:

Bitcoin (BTC)

Bitcoin (BTC) after giving a breakout above the range started trading upwards by forming a ‘Higher High Higher Low’ pattern. The prices made a weekly high of $24,255 yesterday. Currently, the asset is trading in a ‘Bullish Flag’ pattern. However, the bulls will face a major hurdle at $25,200 (Previous Top on 15th August 2022) and $28,500 (Horizontal trendline). Once the prices break and sustain above these resistances then we can expect another rally up to $32k. If it resists at these levels, then we can expect some profit booking. $21,500 will act as strong support for the asset.

Ethereum (ETH)

Ethereum (ETH) was trading sideways in a range from $1,050 to $1,300. The asset finally gave a breakout above the range and started moving upwards by forming a ‘Higher High Higher Low’ pattern and rallied up to $1,714.6. The asset has a strong resistance zone from $1,700 to $1,750 (Horizontal Trendline) and after making the high of $1,714, ETH has made a Doji candle with a longer upper shadow indicating selling around the resistance. Hence, to further rally, ETH needs to break, close and sustain above $1,750 whereas it has strong support around $1,500 (200 Day Moving Average).

Key Market Updates
⦁ The second largest publicly-listed holder of Bitcoin, Marathon Digital Holdings has offloaded some of its Bitcoin for the first time in two years.
⦁ MicroStrategy says no plans to stop trading BTC as paper loss hits $1.3B. The company also booked a loss of $34 million on its first-ever Bitcoin sale last quarter but said it was conducted to harvest a tax loss.
⦁ Huang Yiping, a former member of the Monetary Policy Committee at the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), believes that the Chinese government should think again about whether the ban on crypto trading is sustainable in the long run.

Top five gainers for the week:
Render Token (RNDR): 77 per cent up
ImmutableX (IMX): 41 per cent up
GMX (GMX): 36 per cent up
Optimisim (OP): 34 per cent up
Fantom (FTM): 33 per cent up

Top five losers for the week:
Unus Sed Leo (LEO): 15 per cent down
Toncoin (TON): 8 per cent down
Aptos (APT): 6 per cent down
Apecoin (APE): 5 per cent down
Nexo (NEXO): 5 per cent down

Note: The data includes only top-100 crypto tokens in terms of market capitalizations as of 8.30 hours IST on January 4, 2023. Source of data: Coinmarketcap.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Business Today)