Crypto Today: Bitcoin remains below $60,000, Ether and XRP rally as $100 million in token unlocks loom
- Bitcoin struggles under $60,000 on Monday, $46 million in derivatives positions liquidated in the last 24 hours.
- Ethereum attempts to recover from the recent crash, back above $2,600 at the time of writing.
- XRP rallies nearly 4% and eyes recovery to $0.60, a psychologically important level for the altcoin.
- Arbitrum, Sandbox, Starknet, and Avalanche face over $100 million in token unlocks this week.
Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP update
- Bitcoin trades at $59,440 at the time of writing. The largest crypto-asset by market capitalization struggles below $60,000, a key level for traders. Data from Coinglass shows that there were over $46 million in liquidations in the last 24 hours. Bitcoin price hovers around $58,000 after weekend's sell-off
- Ethereum is crumbling under selling pressure. Ether trades above $2,600 on Monday. Vitalik Buterin’s $8 million ETH transfer on Friday raised concerns among traders as large wallet investors transfer their holdings to exchange wallets.
A whale who received 1M $ETH in #Ethereum ICO at a price of $0.31 deposited 5,000 $ETH($13.2M) to #OKX again 12 hours ago.
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) August 12, 2024
This whale has deposited 48,500 $ETH($154M) to #OKX at an average price of $3,176 in the past month.https://t.co/4AN8voWrFEhttps://t.co/u1zjZ01Ez4 pic.twitter.com/ZDsFCcFiTk
- XRP rallies on Monday, and the asset is back above $0.57, a key support level for Ripple. As traders digest the lawsuit ruling, the firm started its stablecoin’s test on the Ethereum mainnet and the XRPLedger.
- XRP rallies as Ripple tests stablecoin, optimism on SEC lawsuit ruling
Chart of the day
SEI/USDT daily chart
SEI recovered from its drop to the August low of $0.2026, back to $0.3066 at the time of writing. SEI’s price rallies nearly 15% at the time of writing on Monday and is likely to extend gains by another 13.42%. The target for SEI is $0.35.
The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) indicator shows MACD crossing above the signal line. This is considered a bullish sign for SEI.
SEI could find support in the Fair Value Gap (FVG) between $0.2616 and $0.2813, as seen in the SEI/USDT daily chart above.
Market updates
- Marathon Digital Holdings to fund Bitcoin purchases through sale of $250 million of debt, per an official press release.
- Binance plans to converting Monero (XMR) to the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) on September 2 as a part of the delisting process for the token.
- Sandbox (SAND), Arbitrum (ARB), Starknet (STRK), and Avalanche (AVAX) are to unlock over $100 million in assets this week, data from token.unlock shows.
Token unlocks this week
The unlocks could increase selling pressure on the assets, negatively impacting prices.
Industry updates
- Data from IntoTheBlock shows 66% of the wallet addresses holding Ethereum are currently profitable and most ETH holders are sitting on unrealized losses even with the recent market crash.
Just 66% of Ethereum addresses are currently in profit.
— IntoTheBlock (@intotheblock) August 12, 2024
Last week's market downturn significantly impacted Ethereum, pushing many holders into the red.
The last time we saw a similar percentage of profitable holders was in October 2023, when Ethereum was trading around $1,800. pic.twitter.com/XhMonaaSPA
- If Bitcoin’s price crosses $72,000 it would liquidate over $15 billion in derivatives positions, per Coinglass data.
Bitcoin liquidation heatmap
- The crypto fear and greed index shows extreme fear among traders as Bitcoin struggles below $60,000 on Monday.
Fear and Greed index
Bitcoin, altcoins, stablecoins FAQs
Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, a virtual currency designed to serve as money. This form of payment cannot be controlled by any one person, group, or entity, which eliminates the need for third-party participation during financial transactions.
Altcoins are any cryptocurrency apart from Bitcoin, but some also regard Ethereum as a non-altcoin because it is from these two cryptocurrencies that forking happens. If this is true, then Litecoin is the first altcoin, forked from the Bitcoin protocol and, therefore, an “improved” version of it.
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to have a stable price, with their value backed by a reserve of the asset it represents. To achieve this, the value of any one stablecoin is pegged to a commodity or financial instrument, such as the US Dollar (USD), with its supply regulated by an algorithm or demand. The main goal of stablecoins is to provide an on/off-ramp for investors willing to trade and invest in cryptocurrencies. Stablecoins also allow investors to store value since cryptocurrencies, in general, are subject to volatility.
Bitcoin dominance is the ratio of Bitcoin's market capitalization to the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies combined. It provides a clear picture of Bitcoin’s interest among investors. A high BTC dominance typically happens before and during a bull run, in which investors resort to investing in relatively stable and high market capitalization cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. A drop in BTC dominance usually means that investors are moving their capital and/or profits to altcoins in a quest for higher returns, which usually triggers an explosion of altcoin rallies.
Author
Ekta Mourya
FXStreet
Ekta Mourya has extensive experience in fundamental and on-chain analysis, particularly focused on impact of macroeconomics and central bank policies on cryptocurrencies.
