Cryptocurrency Weekly Market Performance Report (16th July — 22th July 2018)
Written by Abhy Singla
Previous week’s overview (9th July ’18–15th July ’18)
Last week’s gains in the cryptocurrency space proved to be short-lived, much to the displeasure of digital currency enthusiasts around the world. Indeed, the total market cap of the cryptocurrency industry fell by about 6% this week, dropping to $249 billion. This places the size of the digital currency market relatively equal to the position it was in early in April of this year.
BTC along with major cryptocurrencies saw a downtrend and all the cryptos fell in the range of 7%-10% last week (9th July — 15th July).
Current week’s overview (16th July ’18–22nd July ’18)
The cryptocurrency market took a sigh of relief this week as Bitcoin ended in the green, with other major cryptos performing better than the previous week as well. However, subsequent to demonstrating a mini-rally on July 18, the crypto market declined by $12 billion, triggered by a large drop in the value of tokens.
During the first 3 days of the week (16th — 18th July), all the major cryptos surged in the range of 1%-9%, however towards the end of the week all the major cryptos fell in the range of 2% — 6% except BTC, which showed signs of recovery and was up by 10% on its week’s beginning price (16th July).
BTC being the currency with the largest market share, we consider it to be positive news and hope this rally will continue and cryptomarket will give some moments of happiness to its dismal investors.
Possible reasons for market movement
This week’s BTC surge is attributed to the current earnings season, which started on Friday (13th July) last week. On Monday (16th July), Blackrock, one of the biggest asset managers with assets under management of $6.3 trillion announced that it would start considering Bitcoin investments.
This was big news for the crypto world which has seen a decrease in demand over the past few months. Traders believe that other large asset managers will start considering cryptocurrencies following Blackrock’s lead.
Another major positive report was from the Financial Stability Board (FSB), which is an international financial watchdog. The organization released a report saying that cryptocurrencies did not pose a major challenge to the international financial system.
Developments over the week in Cryptomarket
- On 17th July, Goldman Sachs, one of the most important banks in the United States named David Solomon as the next CEO. Solomon will take over from Lloyd Blankfein who has been at the helm for more than 12 years. In the past few months, Solomon has been a major advocate for cryptocurrencies.
- In line with exchanges such as Zebpay, Unocoin, BuyUCoin and WazirX, cryptocurrency exchange Koinex has now launched its P2P trading platform, Loop, for Indian investors to transact in cryptocurrencies against INR fiat currency.
- Singapore-based mobile-only social media platform VoxWeb, has launched Vollar, a cryptocurrency to build e-commerce and fintech-based revenue streams.
Bitcoin (BTC) Trend
On 16th July’18, the price of Bitcoin was up by 19% over its previous day’s price (15th July’18). However, the price plunged a little over the week and ended the week in green with 10% above the week’s beginning price (16th July). Since Wednesday (18th July), Bitcoin has performed relatively well against the US dollar. It’s volume, which remained below $3.5 billion last week, has rebounded to $5.2 billion, and tripled on the global market’s largest crypto exchange Binance.
There is a major bullish trend line forming with support at $7,000. Bitcoin price is placed nicely in an uptrend above $7,000 against the US Dollar. BTC/USD is eyeing the next break either above $7,600 or below $7,240.
Bitcoin reached an intra-week high of $7,466 on July 19th. Bitcoin price has increased over the week and is trading marginally above $7,400 at the time of writing (22nd July’18). BTC price increased from $6,741.75 at the beginning of the week (16th July’18 ) and reached $7,425 by 22nd July.
A big shout out to one of our users, Michael Green, who built an online dashboard for live data on Bitcoin, including daily volume and fear and greed index. Click here to check it out.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Ripple (XRP) Trend
The price of Ripple (XRP) has decreased over the week and is now trading in the range of $0.45- $0.50. The market cap now stands at $17,777 million. The total week’s performance settled at -6%.
Ripple has struggled to sustain any momentum from its slight increase in value on July 18. Since July 19, the price of XRP has been in free fall, dropping from $0.49 to $0.45. After recording a large sell-off on major exchanges, XRP has not been able to demonstrate signs of recovery in the short-term.
According to experts, the short-term trend of XRP will likely remain negative in the upcoming days, as the sell-off on July 19 was not sufficient to reverse the Relative Strength Index (RSI) of XRP and create an oversold condition for the Ripple exchange market. The Average Directional Index and various momentum indicators show that the downtrend of XRP is simply too strong at the moment to initiate any sort of corrective rally.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Ethereum (ETH) Trend
ETH plunged this week and traded at around the $450 — $500 mark this week. Unlike Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) has shown a clear bearish signal. ETH price struggled to hold gains above $510 and declined sharply against the US Dollar.
Ethereum price is moving with bearish signs versus the US Dollar and Bitcoin. ETH/USD must clear the $470 and $477 resistances to climb higher.
The total week’s performance settled at -4%. The price was $480.66 on 16th July and gradually decreased to $462.81 towards the end of the week (22nd July).
Source: CoinMarketCap
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Trend
Bitcoin Cash surged on Monday (16th July), up over by 15% than what it was on 15th July with the price moving above the $800 mark. This movement placed it in a bullish zone, above $740 against the US Dollar, however, it must settle above $820 to accelerate gains towards $880 and $900.
The total week’s performance settled at -2% with an intra-week high of $850 on 17th July. However, the digital coin plunged towards the end of the week and was trading at $789.40 at the time of writing. The total market capitalization of Bitcoin Cash is close to $13,534 million at the end of the week.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Top Ten Cryptocurrencies (16th July — 22nd July)
The market cap of cryptocurrencies is a product of the volume of the currency and its price. The top 10 cryptocurrencies comprise almost 83% of the total market cap of cryptomarket at the time of writing. Over the week, the market cap of top 10 cryptos increased from $204,006 million on 15th July to $233 million on 22nd July, an increase of almost 14%.
*Stellar (XLM) has replaced Litecoin and moved one place above in the ranking table. With over 42% increase over the week, it jumped to 6th spot pushing down the Litecoin (LTC) to 7th spot.
Conclusion
The market and community are generally optimistic with the price of BTC surging this week, with the BTC/USD pair jumping above the $7,000 and $7,200 resistance levels to gain traction. It even spiked above the $7,500 resistance and traded as high as $7,672. Later, the price started trading in a range below the $7,650 resistance area and is currently preparing for the next move. At the time of writing, the price of Bitcoin sits at $7,425, with a market capitalization of $127 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.
Another positive takeaway from the performance of the crypto exchange market this week is its strong rebound of trading volume since last week. If this high trading volume of the market can be sustained, it is an encouraging sign for a movement to the upside.
As usual, the markets have been reacting to a number of positive pieces of news, mostly circling around big names such as the global investment company, BlackRock. In addition to this, a recent tweet from CME Group, one of the first companies to offer Bitcoin futures trading, reports that average daily trading volumes are up 93% and open interest surpassed 2,400 contracts, a 58% increase.
There have been mixed opinions about the success of Bitcoin-based futures options since their inception in December 2017, when the Chicago Board Options Exchanges Global (Cboe) and CME Group were both authorized to offer the investment products.
Cboe is potentially seeing greater interest with its renewed efforts to gain approval from the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the first Bitcoin-based exchange traded fund (ETF). A positive decision for Cboe will likely impact cryptocurrency markets considerably with the creation of a further institutional style product.
BlackRock Inc, the world’s largest provider of ETFs has reportedly assembled a working group to investigate cryptocurrency-based products. The news may have contributed to this week’s hike in cryptocurrency market prices.
The question now is whether Bitcoin will hold its gains. In the past, such news has not materially helped cryptocurrencies. For example, when Cboe and CME listed Bitcoin futures, traders expected more demand from institutions. Instead, the demand didn’t increase, and most institutions placed short trades.
However, if Bitcoin continues in its current trajectory, it could be a signal that bulls are regaining control of the market. In such a scenario, Bitcoin could increase even further and test the $8,000 level. However, this is long-term and will be subject to a number of factors including an entry of institutional money into Bitcoin.
Nevertheless, cryptocurrency is here to stay. While most of the current coins might disappear in the years to come, a few of these startups hold the potential to disrupt the entire financial system. Some analysts are very bullish on this market and say it is still in the nascent stage with very few investors. Once the cryptocurrency market goes mainstream, the market cap will grow and so will the prices of coins.
However, given the volatility of the cryptocurrency market, the price movement of cryptocurrencies can change drastically based on market conditions. As such, it is important to actively observe the market to find any irregularity and change in trading conditions.
Disclaimer:
This publication is provided by Invsta in good faith for general information purposes only. Information has been prepared from sources believed to be reliable and accurate at the time of publication, but this is not guaranteed. Information, analysis or views contained herein reflect a judgement at the date of publication and are subject to change without notice. This is not intended to constitute advice to any person. This does not constitute advice of a legal, accounting, tax or other nature to any persons. You should consult your tax adviser in order to understand the impact of investment decisions on your tax position. Past performance is not indicative of future results, and no representation or warranty, express or implied, is made regarding future performance. Cryptocurrencies are a highly volatile, high risk investment in which the value can change significantly. Before making any investment you should consider your own risk tolerance level and personal financial situation.
Originally published at blog.invsta.com on July 23, 2018.
