Bitcoin is about to break out and rally and top monthly gainers

With lackluster trading, Bitcoin is struggling to hold above the $47K resistance level. Speculation regarding a recession has brought down BTC 1% over the past week, as the yield curves of the 30-year and five-year Treasury yield curves inverted for the first time since 2006. Inversions have historically preceded recessions.

Source: Stockcharts.com

However, BTC breached the 50-week mean for the first time in quite some time and established trading above it. It's a sign that underlying momentum could be building.  Moreover, April is traditionally a bullish month for stocks and cryptocurrencies. 

I noted earlier that the Russian-Ukrainian war brought to light a fascinating aspect of crypto, which could act as a store of value and medium of exchange that could help to reduce the humanitarian costs of war and sanctions. Gold was once seen as a safe haven during times of war, but now it is evident that cryptocurrency is becoming a viable alternative to it and fiat money, and there is no doubt that adoption will continue to grow. 

Governments don't want to miss the crypto boat

The British government is considering incorporating stablecoins into the UK payments system and working with the Royal Mint to create a non-fungible token (NFT), a move aimed at creating a "global hub" for crypto. 

Meanwhile, the European Union Committee backed stricter KYC and AML rules for "unhosted" private wallets, requiring any transaction worth more than 1,000 euros, or $1,100, to be reported to authorities. To become law, the new rules must be agreed by the EU Parliament, the European Council and the European Commission, and if they are unopposed, it will take nine to 18 months for the crypto industry to be in full compliance.  

This has caused a strong reaction within the crypto industry. Thus, Pascal Gauthier, CEO of Ledger, a digital wallet company, stated bluntly that the "EU Parliament chose fear over freedom." Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, compared this absurd regulation proposal to the EU requiring your bank to report you to the authorities for every payment over 1,000 euros you make.

Although governments, regulators, and lawmakers want to regulate and increase transparency regarding digital assets, experts say finding a reasonable balance should be the first priority.

Top monthly gainers

Among all sectors, the Decentralized Exchanges sector performed best, returning 54.15% over the past month. The DeFi sector came in second with a return of 44.58%. Another top performer was Smart Contract Platforms, securing a 37.17% return. 

Below are my top picks for the month's top performing tokens:

Crypterium (CRPT)  

Price: $0.589912

Market Cap: $46.10 million

Monthly Gain: +306% 

Crypterium (CRPT) is one of the native tokens of the Choise.com MetaFi (CeFi/DeFi) ecosystem, built on the Crypterium CeFi and Charism DeFi protocols that reinvent how protocols work with CeFi. 

Source: Messari.io 

Following the listing of CRPT on Coinbase, Huobi, and Crypto.com, the price of the token soared, and the trading volumes continued to increase.

THORChain (RUNE)

Price: $10.17

Market Cap: $3.37 billion

Monthly Gain: +139.85% 

ThorChain's consensus algorithm is proof-of-stake and built on Tendermint (Cosmos), with network validators (nodes) required to tie their native token, RUNE. 

ThorChain's integration of synthetic assets was one of the major factors that contributed to RUNE's growth. THORChain synths are unique in that they are backed by half the asset and half of RUNE instead of 100% of the asset itself.

Source: Messari.io 

To create synthetic versions of digital assets, users add RUNE or the underlying crypto assets to a THORChain liquidity pool. With increasing usage of the network, RUNE's value increases. The more liquidity is poured into ThorChain's liquidity pools, the higher RUNE's value becomes. Thus, it outperformed Bitcoin by 100.74% month over month.

SKALE network (SKL) 

Price: $0.234

Market Cap: $813 million

Monthly Gain: +114.35%

SKALE Network is a decentralized, open-source blockchain network designed to scale Web3 applications. One layer above Ethereum, SKALE chains are configurable, application-specific blockchains. They can run full-state smart contracts, execute rollup contracts (a layer-2 scaling solution), support decentralized storage, and run machine learning algorithms using the EVM, making Web3 apps competitive in terms of cost and performance.

There has been a sudden upsurge in interest in SKL ahead of the launch of SKALE v2.0 and because of the project's increased exposure at a recent NFTLA networking event hosted by Blockdaemon. 

Source: Messari.io 

SKL has moderate volatility with a low risk/reward reading, which means that there is little price manipulation and the token enjoys moderate price swings. It outperformed BTC by 92.42% on a month-over-month basis.