Market update
Bitcoin has been on a wild ride this week falling from almost A$73K to below A$61K, before staging a 13.5% recovery in the past 24 hours. BTC finishes the week down 5.1% and is trading at A$68,800 at the time of writing. Ethereum meanwhile broke into new all-time highs around A$3,386 on April 22 and finished the week up 13.6% at A$3,233. It’s up 50% against BTC in the past month and there’s much speculation it’s poised for an even bigger move — Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal is thinking of selling all his BTC for ETH. Bitcoin’s rocky ride saw a wider pullback with XRP down 4.4%, Polkadot (-8.4%), Litecoin (-9.4%), Bitcoin Cash (-10.1%), Chainlink (-7.4%), Stellar (-7.4%) and Synthetix (-4.4%). Most altcoins are substantially in the green today however and Aave finishes the week up 10.3%.
Bull runs don’t always see the price rise smoothly upwards, and we saw a brutal 16.6% drop in the price on the weekend liquidating around US$10B of positions. Bitcoin finishes the week 7.2% down to trade around A$72,500. Pullbacks of between 20-40% are common during bull markets historically speaking. Despite the fall, many coins are up this week including Litecoin (5.8%), Bitcoin Cash (31.5%), Chainlink (7.1%), EOS (1.7%). Ethereum was flat while others lost ground including Ripple (-5%), Polkadot (-14.5%), Stellar (-12.8%) AAVE (-14%), Synthetix (-18.6%). The Fear and Greed index is at 74, or ‘greed’. Monthly adjusted on chain volume for Bitcoin hit a record US$366.27 billion in March, up 14.7% from the previous ATH in February.
Another historic week for Bitcoin kicks off with the leading cryptocurrency again within sight of breaking the all-time high of A$80,924, set on March 13. It’s currently up 1.8% for the week to trade at just over A$79,000, with Bitcoin dominance at 53.9%. Bitcoin was again the best performing institutional grade asset of the first quarter, gaining 103%, followed by oil which was up 26%. Gold meanwhile lost 10%. Ethereum has just ploughed into a new all time high of A$2,885 and finishes the week up 1.4% at A$2,820. Court victories saw Ripple rediscover its mojo, up 59.3%, Litecoin increased 12.3%, Chainlink (3%), Stellar (10.8%) and Bitcoin Cash (8.8%). Aave was flat, Polkadot fell by 8.1%, EOS dropped 4.6% and SNX lost 5.4%.
March has historically been a terrible month for Bitcoin, but not this year with the price increasing by almost a third. Bitcoin is up 2.9% on a week ago to trade just under A$77,000. However, Bitcoin dominance has fallen from 72% at the turn of the year to 55.7% today. The reason is that altcoins have gone nuts: in the past two months, the number of crypto unicorns has doubled. There are now 100 projects with a market cap above US$1 billion. Ethereum has broken into new highs and is currently up 17.8% to trade around A$2,760. Everything else saw double-figure percentage increases with Polkadot up 33.6%, XRP/Ripple (61.5%), Litecoin (14.8%), LINK (16.2%), Stellar (30.7%), Bitcoin Cash (26.7%), EOS (58.5%), AAVE (11.2%) and Synthetix (19.8%).
After taking a tumble to the A$67,000 mark on Friday following the expiration of a record $6B in options contracts, Bitcoin has recovered to trade above A$75,000. It finishes the week up 5.4%. Ethereum was up even more (6.5%) on this time last week after Visa announced it was settling some transactions on the network. Litecoin was up 3.1%, Stellar (1.6%) Aave (3.5%) and EOS (3.2%). Ripple, Chainlink, and Bitcoin Cash were all flat, Polkadot lost 4.3% and Synthetix lost 3.3%. Analyst Filbfilb, co-founder of Decentrader, believes alt season has arrived, pointing to Bitcoin dominance falling below 60%, the lowest point since October 2020. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is at 72 or Greed.
Bitcoin was trading as high as A$77,000 earlier this week, but took a tumble over the past couple of days and is currently trading around $71K. That’s 3.1% down on seven days ago. Ethereum lost 5.7%, Litecoin dropped 6.9%, BCH (-2.5%), AAVE (-6.6%) and SNX (-3.8%). However, Polkadot increased 3.4%, XRP/Ripple was up a whopping 27.2% amid a new push to get it relisted on exchanges, LINK was flat and Stellar was up 4%. Sentiment has eased and the Fear and Greed Index is currently at 70, or Greed.