Market update
Fears that CME opening futures trading for ETH this week would mark the top of the bull run have been comprehensively dismissed by the insanely bullish news overnight that Tesla invested a huge chunk of change into Bitcoin. Bitcoin is up 19.2% in the past 24 hours as result, and 37.7% for the week and has topped $60,000 for the very first time. It has also crossed the A$1 trillion mark ($1.1T in fact) and the hash rate hit 176 EH/s on Friday for a new all-time high. Ethereum also hit a new all-time high today and is up 28.6% this week to $2,271. XRP managed to increase 15.4% in seven days, but it wasn’t enough – DOT and ADA overtook, and XRP has fallen to sixth place. Everything else was up: Litecoin (26.1%), LINK (11.4%), Bitcoin Cash (17.2%), Stellar (24.4%), AAVE (66.1%), EOS (18.7%) and SNX (23.1%).
It was an insane week on the markets, with sudden pumps and dumps, worldwide media attention and general weirdness, like KISS bassist Gene Simmons buying XRP and DOGE. The Bitcoin price has traded between $40K and almost $50K and finishes the week 3.8% up around $44,100. Almost everything else was up including ETH (4.3%), XRP (35.5%), Chainlink (1.7%), Stellar (6%), EOS (14.1%), AAVE (22.1%), SNX (11.9%). Bitcoin Cash lost 5.2% and Litecoin was flat. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is at 77 (Extreme Greed).
After trading above $50K last week, Bitcoin fell below $40K last Tuesday. But shortly after Grayscale reopened to new investors, the price recovered to its previous heights. Coincidence or not? It emerged yesterday that on Jan 15, Grayscale recorded inflows of $900M in a single day. Bitcoin finishes the week 7% up on last week, and it’s still 51% up on a month ago. Ethereum also recovered nicely and is up 23% on seven days ago. XRP was delisted by Kraken, declined 9.8% and lost its coveted fourth place to Polkadot, the latest ‘Ethereum-killer’ which almost doubled in a week. Litecoin up 11.9%, BCH (14%), EOS (-8%), Bitcoin SV (-15.52%). LINK was up 48.67% with a new ATH price, Stellar (10.4%), Synthetix (13.7%) and AAVE (56.8%).
Bitcoin broke the $50,000 barrier this week and kept climbing, nearly touching $54K over the weekend. But after a massive $14K plunge and a small recovery we’re now back at prices not seen since … last week. In fact, we’re up 13.2% on last Tuesday to trade around $46,000. Ether looked like it was closing in on a new all-time high and topped $1,700 before the plunge. It’s back at $1400 to finish the week up 7.1%. Both coins are up 85% on a month ago. Apart from Litecoin (down 8.2%), and EOS (-3.6%), everything else was up: XRP (24.6%), LINK (9.1%), Stellar (64.6%), AAVE (8%) and SNX (20.3%).
The new year has certainly started off with a bang, with Bitcoin nearing $45,000 on January 3, then “crashing” below $38,000 in the first big retracement since we crossed the US$20K barrier (A$26K) in December. It finishes the week around $42,200 to mark a 20% gain. The Ethereum price was even more explosive and is nearing $1500 for the best prices since early 2018. It’s up 51.1% this week. Other coins saw big gains including Litecoin (up 20.8%), Bitcoin Cash (15.4%), Chainlink (12%), Stellar (13.1%), EOS (2.5%) AAVE (39.2%) and Synthetix (47.7%). Bitcoin SV gained 6.8% while Ripple gained 2% and was briefly overtaken as the fourth largest cryptocurrency by Litecoin.
It’s been another massive week in crypto with Bitcoin trading above $37,100 for the first time. At the time of writing Bitcoin was around $35,400 to be up 16.9% for the week and 47.9% for the month. Bitcoin’s current market cap of $660 billion makes it larger than Visa and Walmart and it’s closing in fast on Berkshire Hathaway. The news hit the front page of CNN, in a story headlined: “What the #)$*#@)($ is happening with Bitcoin’s insane record run?”. After lagging Bitcoin for some time, Ethereum finally outshone the king this week, marking an 18.5% gain to trade above $950. Litecoin increased 21%, Bitcoin Cash gained 12.4%, Chainlink was up 1.2% while Synthetix jumped 28.2%. It’s not alt season quite yet however with Bitcoin SV losing 2.9% and EOS down 7.3%. XRP‘s legal dramas saw it fall 53.1% and may have contributed to the 14.3% fall for Stellar, a similar project from XRP co-founder Jed McCaleb.