Weekly Crypto Market Report: Dec 20-26, 2021 - BTC, ETH, MATIC, LUNA & More

Market Fundamentals Analysis

Crypto markets have been festively surging over the last seven days. In the past week, crypto’s global market capitalization climbed 6.8% to $2.48 trillion. Having said that, the top 2 assets have been fairly range-bound this week, moving sideways making it difficult to ascertain a particular trend. BTC has been moving in the range of C$63k-C$66k, while ETH has been trading in the range of C$5k-C$5.4k. The tussle between the bears and the bulls is what is keeping this battle alive, and for anything drastic to happen, the market would have to move in a particular direction for a sustainable amount of time. BTC dominance stands at 40.2%, while ETH closes in on a 21% share, not because of its own performance, but due to the fact that it has overperformed BTC through most of the year thus far. Having said that, BTC is trying to break above the psychologically critical level at C$66,000 and close the year on a strong note. On the same lines, the bulls are attempting to push and sustain ETH above the 20-day EMA of C$5,250. If this does happen, the corrective phase could be over, and we might witness another rally. On the other hand, if the price turns down from the current level, we can safely assume that the sentiment will stay negative.

LUNA and SAND have fared well, with PwC purchasing land plots in the Sandbox metaverse. Terra has surpassed BSC to become the second-biggest DeFi chain with $20 Billion TVL after Ethereum. Aave (AAVE) and Terra’s LUNA have surged by ~36% as inflows into DeFi keep growing. The Terra network, in particular, has positively exploded in the last quarter. Uniswap (UNI) and Polygon (MATIC) are witnessing a rally too. Uniswap is up 10%, while Polygon is up 29% in the past week. Their coordinated rally is attributed to the fact that Uniswap users voted to deploy the exchange’s smart contracts on Polygon. The move significantly reduces the fees incurred when users tap into the Ethereum network through Uniswap, as Polygon is a Layer 2 scaling solution designed to ease the load from Ethereum. Polkadot (DOT) rose 15.4% over the week too. The growth it has witnessed in recent times comes after the launch of five parachains on the network. Cardano (ADA) and Ripple's XRP also witnessed good gains this week. ADA is up around 15% from last week, while XRP is up 12% on a week-on-week basis. Apart from Aave and LUNA, the meme coin shined this week. Shiba Inu (SHIB) is seeing a  seven-day gain of around 20%. Its price is still a fraction of a cent, trading for C$0.00004910. Dogecoin (DOGE) had a comparatively dim Christmas climb. It’s currently worth C$0.2433, and up 9.6% from a week before.

While the big guns, BTC and ETH continue to trade sideways and have failed to show any real momentum, the altcoin sector’s impressive allies this week indicate that investors are looking outside the market leaders for projects to invest their funds into. This is also a sign of maturity for the whole ecosystem, and especially the DeFi space. The market is overall green with the volume also growing. The digital market is back with positive action in the midst of the holiday season and hopes to end the year on such highs.

Weekly Snapshot

Market Updates

-          President of Turkey Recep Tayyip has confirmed the completion of a crypto law draft which will be soon shared with the parliament for the mainstream execution in the nation as reported by local news.

-          Due to decreasing temperature in Iran, the local energy authorities have announced to halt all operations of authorized cryptocurrency mining centers to reduce liquid fuel consumption in the power plants.

-          Binance Turkey has been fined by the Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) about 8 million Lira which equates to $750,000 after the exchange failed the audit for AML compliance.

Bitcoin Technical Analysis

Bitcoin after witnessing a sharp fall from C$84,999 to C$54,600 started consolidating. The asset is trading sideways in a broad range from C$59,500 to C$66,000 forming a ‘Rectangle Pattern’.  BTC took multiple support around C$58,500 (78.6% Fibonacci Retracement Level) and started moving up. However, the asset has made a ‘Doji’ candle at the resistance level of the range (C$66,000) which indicates indecisiveness on the part of bulls to continue its juggernaut for the moment.  Once the breakout occurs above C$66,500 with good volumes then we can expect the asset to further rally up to the C$75k mark. If the prices break the support of C$59k then the prices can further slide to C$55k levels. Declining Volumes, horizontal Moving Average and RSI around 50 suggest a neutral stance for the asset.

For the latest cryptocurrency prices, check out NDAX's Markets page.

Disclaimer:

Information provided in the weekly market report is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as investment, legal, or tax advice. Prior to investing, it is very important to evaluate your investment objectives and your risk tolerance carefully. This technical report is not meant to provide guarantees of future performance, and users should not rely on it, as the actual performance and financial results may differ significantly.