Crypto news: Bitcoin falls below 30,000 USD. Will Ethereum lead 'altcoins season'?

12:06 PM 17 April 2023

Bitcoin falls below $30,000 and makes the mood of the crypto market mixed at the opening of the week. On the other hand, however, the declines may prove 'necessary' for capital to start flowing to other projects. Looking historically, smaller cryptocurrencies rose most often when the price of BTC was consolidating after previous dynamic increases. Also, the rise of ETH may bring a 'spring' to 'tech-crypto' projects.

Will Ethereum will lead altcoins momentum?

  • Ethereum's rally after the Shanghai update caused Bitcoin's so-called dominance to fall from nearly two-year highs. With Bitcoin's dominance waning but still high, the market is hoping for an 'altcoin bull market' - few cryptocurrencies have matched BTC's gains since the beginning of the year;
  • The favorable momentum for Ethereum has been compounded by the bullish outperformance of traditional exchanges and a general increase in risk appetite, among other factors. The market is hoping for Bitcoin's price to stabilize and for further increases in 'altcoins' like Ethereum Cardano, Solana and Filecoin'
  • Yesterday, at one point, new deposits to the Ethereum chain surprisingly exceeded withdrawals (27,000 ETH deposited and only 7,615 withdrawn). One investor deposited about 50,000 ETH into the chain;
  • The situation is surprising because the market expected that after the Shanghai update, investors primarily would massively withdraw ETH locked in the chain for 2 years. Cryptocurrency stakers are helping to process transactions by depositing their shares in the chain in exchange for 'rewards'. 
  • ETH withdrawals are indeed taking place, but on a smaller scale than expected and surrounded by sizable deposits, which may be evidence of strong interest in the capabilities of the Ethereum blockchain as a whole.

Ethereum has gained about 70% since the beginning of the year against more than 80% gains in BTC. The market has seen opportunities in recent events to further reduce Bitcoin's dominance and more favorable momentum for smaller cryptocurrencies. The dynamic growth of the largest of the 'alts, i.e. Ethereum, came often as more and more investors gained faith in Bitcoin's next bull market. Their certainty about future profits drove the prices of smaller projects. Source: Bloomberg

A chart showing withdrawals and deposits on Ethereum.ETH withdrawals have risen exponentially, as expected . In the past 24 hours, the blockchain has processed about $200 million in ETH (about 98,000 ETH), with another 878,000 ETH waiting to come out of the network. Significant new inflows are also visible. Source: Nansen, Decrypt

The weekly average of BTC addresses in profit reached again the 75% level observed before the collapse of the Luna/Terra ecosystem in May 2022. This illustrates the magnitude of the improvement in sentiment but also could signal a possibly greater supply of BTC. Source: Glassnode

The sentiment of the cryptocurrency market as measured by the Fear and Greed Index indicates 75 points i.e. greed. The last time we observed it was in November 2021, when BTC cost more than $60,000. Some investors may see the dynamic rebound of the index as a signal of BTC 'overheating' and a contrarian signal. Source: Cointelegraph

Ethereum chart, H1 interval. The overcoming of the key 38.2 Fibonacci retracement of the upward wave started in mid-March supported the bullish momentum although buyers, after the euphoric increases evidently caught breathlessness. Key supports can be sought by supporting the SMA100 and SMA200 averages, with the latter average (red line) confirming that the psychological level between $1,950 and $2,000 may prove key to hold in the coming days. The 23.6 Fibonacci retracement also runs in this area. Source: xStation5

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