Technical analysis of major crypto currencies: Feb 13 – 19
Last week in the news
A mixed week on financial markets. After the latest FOMC moves and speak of FED Chair Powell, there are still some mixed signals which investors are trying to sort out. The US equity market ended Friday’s trading slightly higher, after the worst week in more than a month. The crypto market lost some of its value, with Bitcoin holding above $21K and Ether still holding above $1.5K.
Aside from the mixed macro sentiment, the crypto industry has been additionally hit by the news on the SEC moves toward staking crypto products. During the previous week, Kraken, one of the largest crypto exchanges, made a settlement of $30 million with the SEC on the charge that the company did not make a registration of their staking-as-a-service offer. At the same time, fears arouse on the market that Ethereum might be the next target of the SEC, considering their staking program. The SEC Chair Gary Gensler sent a message to other market participants to “take a note” and fully comply with the regulation on any programs which contain words “lend, yield or earn '', regardless of what the economics behind such programs are.
Interesting announcement came from Binance last week. Namely, the company announced that, starting from February 8th, non-US customers will not be able to make deposits or withdrawals in the USD to or from their bank accounts. At the same time there has not been an explanation for such a strange decision. After this announcement there has been a spike of funds outflows from Binance to other exchangers and individual wallets, as many clients made a withdrawal of their USDT and USDC coins.
A test network Sepolia will be pushed through the Shanghai upgrade on February 28th. The date has been agreed by the Ethereum developers. This will be the second network upgrade, after the Zhejiang test network has been already simulated during the previous week. As it has been announced, there will be one more test network upgrade before the final release of the Shanghai hark fork during March.
News is reporting that PayPal placed their stablecoin project on hold, after their main crypto partner Paxos and the issuer of PAX stablecoin, has been placed under investigation by the New York Department of Financial Services.
The decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) called Friends with Benefits (FWB) announced on Twitter the introduction of a new kind of social network with the aim to gather enthusiasts of Web3 adoption and education. In order to join this community, a user needs to hold a minimum 75 FWB tokens.
Crypto market cap
After the latest FOMC moves and speak of FED Chair Powell, there are still some mixed signals which investors are trying to sort out. Strong jobs figures do not fit into a story about recession, while, on the other hand, it might imply further inflator pressures which might be in store for the future period. A week ahead is bringing data on US inflation in January and producer price index, which will be closely watched by the markets. In this sense, there could be some increased market volatility ahead. On the opposite side, the crypto market was under strong influence of SEC`s strike on the crypto staking products. Kraken already passed this SEC`s scanner with $30 million in fines and halt of offering of such products. SEC Chair Gensler sent a clear message to all market participants that all products which include words ``lend, yield or earn” needs to be properly registered with the SEC. The markets are now waging which crypto company might be next on the SEC`s list for potential penalty.
This news made a negative impact on the crypto market. Total crypto market capitalization was decreased during the week by 7%, impacting outflow of $73B from the market. The capitalization fell below $1 trillion for one more time. Daily trading volumes were additionally decreased from the week before, moving on average around $75B on a daily basis. Total crypto market capitalization has increased by 28% since the beginning of this year, adding total $211B to the market cap.
Weekly drop in total market capitalization of $73B was led mostly by the major coins on the market, however, there are rare coins which ended the week in green. BTC, ETH and BNB participated with 75% in total market drop during the week, by losing the most in nominal values. BTC` market cap was down by more than 7% or $32B, and was followed by ETH, with a decrease in cap of almost $19B or more than 9%. BNB`s market cap had an outflow of $3.5B or more than 6.6%. Altcoins which lost in value more than $1B were XRP, which was down by $1.5B or 7%, DOGE with a drop of $1.6B or almost 13%, Cardano dropped by $1.5B or 10%, and Solana with a decrease of $1.5B or 16.5%. Majority of other altcoins lost less than 10% in value. As for coins in circulation, Polkadot was a surprise of the week, by managing to increase its total circulating coins by 11% on a weekly basis. Filecoin continues its rally with circulating coins, adding almost 3% during the previous week.
Crypto futures market
General negative crypto market sentiment caused by SEC`s strike on the crypto staking products, made an impact for the crypto futures to trade lower compared to the week before. BTC short term futures were traded lower by more than 8%, while December 2023 was closed 6.4% lower, at a price of $22.6K. Futures maturing in December 2024 were down by 7.7% on a weekly basis, trading around $22.4K.
ETH short term futures ended the week down around 10%, while longer maturities were lower by more than 6% on a weekly basis. Futures maturing in December this year were traded modestly below $1.6K, while those maturing in December 2024 were modestly higher from $1.6K.
A mixed week on financial markets. After the latest FOMC moves and speak of FED Chair Powell, there are still some mixed signals which investors are trying to sort out. The US equity market ended Friday’s trading slightly higher, after the worst week in more than a month. The crypto market lost some of its value, with Bitcoin holding above $21K and Ether still holding above $1.5K.
Aside from the mixed macro sentiment, the crypto industry has been additionally hit by the news on the SEC moves toward staking crypto products. During the previous week, Kraken, one of the largest crypto exchanges, made a settlement of $30 million with the SEC on the charge that the company did not make a registration of their staking-as-a-service offer. At the same time, fears arouse on the market that Ethereum might be the next target of the SEC, considering their staking program. The SEC Chair Gary Gensler sent a message to other market participants to “take a note” and fully comply with the regulation on any programs which contain words “lend, yield or earn '', regardless of what the economics behind such programs are.
Interesting announcement came from Binance last week. Namely, the company announced that, starting from February 8th, non-US customers will not be able to make deposits or withdrawals in the USD to or from their bank accounts. At the same time there has not been an explanation for such a strange decision. After this announcement there has been a spike of funds outflows from Binance to other exchangers and individual wallets, as many clients made a withdrawal of their USDT and USDC coins.
A test network Sepolia will be pushed through the Shanghai upgrade on February 28th. The date has been agreed by the Ethereum developers. This will be the second network upgrade, after the Zhejiang test network has been already simulated during the previous week. As it has been announced, there will be one more test network upgrade before the final release of the Shanghai hark fork during March.
News is reporting that PayPal placed their stablecoin project on hold, after their main crypto partner Paxos and the issuer of PAX stablecoin, has been placed under investigation by the New York Department of Financial Services.
The decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) called Friends with Benefits (FWB) announced on Twitter the introduction of a new kind of social network with the aim to gather enthusiasts of Web3 adoption and education. In order to join this community, a user needs to hold a minimum 75 FWB tokens.
Crypto market cap
After the latest FOMC moves and speak of FED Chair Powell, there are still some mixed signals which investors are trying to sort out. Strong jobs figures do not fit into a story about recession, while, on the other hand, it might imply further inflator pressures which might be in store for the future period. A week ahead is bringing data on US inflation in January and producer price index, which will be closely watched by the markets. In this sense, there could be some increased market volatility ahead. On the opposite side, the crypto market was under strong influence of SEC`s strike on the crypto staking products. Kraken already passed this SEC`s scanner with $30 million in fines and halt of offering of such products. SEC Chair Gensler sent a clear message to all market participants that all products which include words ``lend, yield or earn” needs to be properly registered with the SEC. The markets are now waging which crypto company might be next on the SEC`s list for potential penalty.
This news made a negative impact on the crypto market. Total crypto market capitalization was decreased during the week by 7%, impacting outflow of $73B from the market. The capitalization fell below $1 trillion for one more time. Daily trading volumes were additionally decreased from the week before, moving on average around $75B on a daily basis. Total crypto market capitalization has increased by 28% since the beginning of this year, adding total $211B to the market cap.
Weekly drop in total market capitalization of $73B was led mostly by the major coins on the market, however, there are rare coins which ended the week in green. BTC, ETH and BNB participated with 75% in total market drop during the week, by losing the most in nominal values. BTC` market cap was down by more than 7% or $32B, and was followed by ETH, with a decrease in cap of almost $19B or more than 9%. BNB`s market cap had an outflow of $3.5B or more than 6.6%. Altcoins which lost in value more than $1B were XRP, which was down by $1.5B or 7%, DOGE with a drop of $1.6B or almost 13%, Cardano dropped by $1.5B or 10%, and Solana with a decrease of $1.5B or 16.5%. Majority of other altcoins lost less than 10% in value. As for coins in circulation, Polkadot was a surprise of the week, by managing to increase its total circulating coins by 11% on a weekly basis. Filecoin continues its rally with circulating coins, adding almost 3% during the previous week.
Crypto futures market
General negative crypto market sentiment caused by SEC`s strike on the crypto staking products, made an impact for the crypto futures to trade lower compared to the week before. BTC short term futures were traded lower by more than 8%, while December 2023 was closed 6.4% lower, at a price of $22.6K. Futures maturing in December 2024 were down by 7.7% on a weekly basis, trading around $22.4K.
ETH short term futures ended the week down around 10%, while longer maturities were lower by more than 6% on a weekly basis. Futures maturing in December this year were traded modestly below $1.6K, while those maturing in December 2024 were modestly higher from $1.6K.
