Weekly Crypto Analysis: Bitcoin Testing $25K; Ethereum, Shiba Inu, Blackrock in Highlights

2022/08/15 13:29:13

Most of the cryptocurrencies traded spent the week either gaining or losing slightly, making the weekly overview less unified than in the previous weeks. The overall cryptocurrency market volume in the past 24 hours came up to $77.57 billion. The overall crypto market cap stayed in the same spot compared to the previous week, coming up to $1.15 trillion, a slight increase from the previous week’s $1.14 billion.

Let's delve deeper and take a quick look at the latest crypto market news and BTC's technical outlook.

Crypto Market Overview

Bitcoin's dominance is steadily declining and now fell below 40%, now standing at 39.05%. This came as a result of Ethereum outperforming the top cryptocurrency by market cap due to its price increase before the long-awaited merge. The most valuable cryptocurrency pair, BTC/USDT, is currently trading at $24,095.98, while Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has risen to $1,895.48, up 11.47% in the last week.

The top performers from the previous week were Ankr (ANKR), Shiba Inu (SHIB), and Chiliz (CHZ). ANKR has increased by more than 39.90% to $0.047, while SHIB gained 24.03% in the past seven days. Finally, CHZ gained 18.18% to $0.18.

Cryptocurrency Market Heatmap | Source: Coin360

On the other hand, ApeCoin (APE), Kusama (KSM), and The Graph (GRT) were the worst performers of the week. APE is down 15.68% to $6.33; KSM is down 14.01% in the last seven days; GRT is down 13.59% to $0.13.

Top Altcoin Gainers and Losers

Top Altcoin Gainers:

⧫ Ankr (ANKR) ➠ 39.90%

⧫ Shiba Inu (SHIB) ➠ 24.03%

⧫ Chilliz (CHZ) ➠ 18.18%

Top Altcoin Losers:

⧫ ApeCoin (APE) ➠ 15.68%

⧫ Kusama (KSM) ➠ 14.01%

⧫ The Graph (GRT) ➠ 13.59%

News Highlights

Here are some of the events that made the previous week's crypto news section stand out:

Ethereum 2.0 Merge in the Limelight, ETH Touches the $2,000 Mark

The second leading cryptocurrency, Ether, has continued its upwards trajectory amid merger speculation.

Goerli, the most anticipated event prior to the Ethereum merger, switched to PoS on August 12. Even though this is the final official test before the official Merge, Ethereum developers will continue to test smaller devnets and shadow forks.

With Goerli transitioning to PoS, we now have an expected date for the Ethereum merge, which gave strong positive sentiment to Ether’s supporters. As a result of this, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap skyrocketed, and even managed to touch the $2,000 mark, before stabilizing at around $1,800.

Another thing to note is that the Ethereum’s merge may not be as smooth as expected, as a community of miners and PoW supporters is adamant about creating their own fork of Ethereum that will continue operating with PoW.

Shiba Inu (SHIB) Skyrockets on Technicals

Shiba Inu (SHIB) managed to break out of its prevailing cup-and-handle pattern yesterday, rallying close to 30% in just one day.

If we take a look at SHIB’s fundamentals and technicals, we can see two slightly different stories. Fundamentally, Shiba Inu’s price rally had no visible catalysts. While some argue that the cryptocurrency had an exception burn rate, the actual amount of SHIB burned came up to only $4,500. On the other hand, the meme cryptocurrency did get added to the Binance Card supported tokens list - but this happened over ten days ago, and caused no market traction then.

On the other hand, SHIB’s technicals have been signaling that the cryptocurrency was in a cup-and-handle pattern until yesterday, when it broke it to the upside. The cup-and-handle pattern has a very positive success rate in determining the direction of the next move, and an over 60% success rate at detecting the size of the move.

Numerous analysts predict a 50% rally for SHIB by the start of September.

Blackrock Enters the Crypto Industry, Scaramucci Predicts a $300K BTC

Anthony Scaramucci, the founder and managing partner of Skybridge Capital, stated that he believes BlackRock’s Bitcoin trust will contribute towards a Bitcoin demand shock that will make its price skyrocket. He also predicted that the price increase may come sooner than anticipated, and added that he believes BTC will head to $300,000 very soon.

Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, has entered the crypto market by partnering up with Coinbase, all in order to provide its US-based institutional clients easy access to crypto. This would be done by Blackrock’s own private trust, which would operate on the spot market.

While the thought of one company entering the crypto market may sound underwhelming, this is, in fact, huge news. Blackrock manages around $10 trillion dollars - 9 times the amount of the total market cap of the crypto industry. If its institutional investors dedicate only a small portion of their portfolios towards crypto, we may as well see another bull market extremely soon.

Kevin O’Leary Expresses His Thoughts on Tornado Cash Ban

One of the news that caused divided sentiment in the sector was the US ban on Tornado Cash, a well-known Ethereum-based “crypto mixer” service.

Shark Tank host Kevin O’Leary expressed his thoughts on the ban, and showed positive sentiment towards the US government opting to force regulation this way. Clamping down on crypto services that “mess with the primal forces of regulation” is necessary, stated O’Leary, adding that Tornado Cash and similar services are deterring real institutional capital from coming into the space.

He then suggested that applications like Tornado Cash are a part of a “crypto cowboy” culture that the industry should grow out of. O'Leary advocated for a rule-based crypto sector that would, as a result, attract institutional capital.

The Fear & Greed Index at 45, Market Sentiment Improving

The fear and greed index still signals "fear," with an index indicating a 45 score. Fear levels have improved greatly since the past week, with the market now being much less fearful.

Last week, the index scored 30, indicating a shift from “extreme fear” to “fear.”

Fear & Greed Index | Source: Alternative

Crypto Calendar: Events to Watch This Week

➺ 16/08/2022 - FileCoin - FIL-Singapore Summit

Bitcoin (BTC/USDT) Analysis on KuCoin Chart

Bitcoin has had a great week, with its price slowly inching up towards the $25,000 mark. The largest cryptocurrency by market cap has seemingly entered a minor uptrend, which it has been following for just under a month now.

This uptrend has led BTC from a little over $18,000 all the way up to a high of $25,206, which it hit a couple of hours ago. However, the price bounced back from the psychological resistance and is now fighting to stay above $24,000.

BTC/USDT Chart on the Daily Timeframe | Source: KuCoin

However, some analysts are predicting a double top for Bitcoin, and are stating that both Bitcoin and major altcoins are hitting their resistance levels, and are ready for a retracement to lower levels.

Bitcoin’s immediate resistance level stays at $25,000, while its immediate support level lies at the 21-day moving average, currently sitting at $23,422.

Did you know that KuCoin offers premium TradingView charts to all its clients? With this, you can step up your Bitcoin technical analysis and easily identify various crypto chart patterns.