Cryptocurrency Market News: Ripple rockets as Bitcoin and Ethereum struggle to contain gains

Here is what you need to know on Wednesday, July 29, 2020.

Markets:

Bitcoin price is struggling to hold above the short term support at $10,900. The rush to defend this support comes after Bitcoin lost the ground above $11,000 even after trading yearly highs at $11,400. On the downside, support was established at $10,800. At the moment, BTC/USD is exchanging hands at $10,964. All the attention and effort in the bullish camp is directed towards redeeming the position above $11,000.

The second-largest cryptocurrency, Ether like Bitcoin is trying to save investors from a trip downstream that could be disastrous. ETH/USD recently hit a yearly high at $334 but retreated, stepping below the support at $320. As reported earlier, Ethereum embraced support at $312 and is currently nurturing a bullish momentum. As discussed a triangle breakout could eventually catapult Ether beyond $340.

Ripple, on the other hand, is at the helm of recovery in the market. As Bitcoin and Ethereum retreat to take a breather, XRP scaled levels above $0.23 as well as $0.24. Meanwhile, over 4.61% of gains have been posted on the day. XRP/USD is trading at $0.2414, supported by a strong bullish bias and high volume.

Among the 100 coins, some cryptoassets are performing incredibly well. They include Aave (10.61%), Elrond (11.11%), Algorand (9.55%), Nexo (9.93%), and iExec RLC (11.13%).

Chart Of The Day: ETH/USD 1-hour

Market:

Bakkt, the physically-settled futures trading platform and a subsidiary of the Intercontinental Exchange has in the past couple of days recorded massive volumes for BTC futures contracts. The surge is taking place amid the spike in Bitcoin (BTC) price. Bitcoin recently hit a new high for the year while Bakkt futures on July 28 hit 11,506 contracts; representing an 85% increase from the last record high. The futures contracts are settled in Bitcoin and not in cash.

In just 14 days, Grayscale, a fund management firm based in New York has recorded an additional $1 billion in assets. The company confirmed on Twitter on Tuesday that assets under its management have now hit $5.1 billion. The lion’s share of the fund is held in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust while Grayscale Ethereum Trust comes in the second spot.

Industry:

According to the most recent data by Messari, a cryptoanalysis platform, DeFi only represents 1.5% of the entire cryptocurrency market capitalization. The sum of all DeFi projects as per the data by Messari is $4.1 billion (less than Bitcoin Cash’s market cap). Messari’s analyst Watkins rubbishes the claim that the ecosystem is overvalued. Instead, he believes that DeFi has massive room for growth as it benefits from “the reallocation” of funds from some of the top 30 cryptocurrencies that are rather “useless first-gen cryptocurrencies, ghost town ‘ETH killers,’ and dead projects.”

On the other hand, Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum (ETH) is advising DeFi users not to ignore the smart contracts' risk. He also warned that users should not “risk their life savings” in the ecosystem.

Quote of the day:

DeFi is still fine, but don't act like it's a place where you should advocate for a lot of regular people to put their life savings into. @Vitali Buterin