Crypto market forecast: 8th July

It was a quieter week in the crypto markets with Bitcoin continuing to march forward as it looks to consolidate its recent price gains. The altcoin markets experienced a mixed trading period with most assets trading red or sideways. Over the past 7 days, the BTC price rose ~1%. It is currently trading at ~USD 11,539. ETH, the number two crypto asset by market cap, rose ~1%, while XRP, the number three asset by market cap, fell ~6%. The overall crypto market cap fell marginally by ~0.2%.

Bitcoin continues to send positive fundamental signals to the market. Early last week, CME Group, the respected institutional trading exchange announced that June was a record-breaking month for its Bitcoin futures product, with a record in open interest and new account sign-ups. CME Group stated that in 2019 there were 950 new account signups, a 30% increase in total accounts.

Open interest for Bitcoin futures on CME has risen steadily month-on-month in 2019. Open contract numbers rose to a record-breaking 6,096 by the end of June. This suggests that demand from institutions and professional traders to trade the Bitcoin markets may be hitting new highs, coinciding with the asset’s strong price gains in 2019.

In the last week, Bitcoin’s hashrate also registered a new all-time high. Hashrate represents the speed at which a given mining machine operates on the Bitcoin network, and the number of calculations it can perform every second. Hashrate is a vital metric for Bitcoin miners. A higher hashrate means that miners have more chances of solving the Bitcoin block reward puzzle. It also means the blockchain is consuming more energy to process transactions, and this makes it more secure as the cost of a 51% attack rises in tandem.

The true relationship between the BTC price and the hashrate is inconsistent and difficult to determine. A rise in mining activity can be viewed as a bearish medium-term indicator as it may front-run large BTC sell-offs as miners eventually dump recently mined coins to lock in profits and pay for operational expenses.

However, hashrate generally follows price. A higher Bitcoin price means more profit is earned for every coin mined. This suggests the pick up in hashrate is expected, because of the rising value of the Bitcoin price. Miners may be expanding their operations in order to make the most of the ongoing higher prices. As long as the price maintains momentum, the hashrate will likely stay high. Hashrate is also dependent on the technical specifications of the current mining rigs. The improved efficiency of next-generation Bitcoin ASICs may be a contributing factor to the high hashrate.

This week in crypto events

8th July- [Launch of BitTorrent token](https://twitter.com/justinsuntron/status/1147308976733769728)

This Monday is the public launch of the BitTorrent Speed Dapp, a variation of the InterPlanetary FileSystem (IPFS) protocol built by the Tron and BitTorrent projects. BitTorrent Speed rewards users with BTT tokens when serving data to others by seeding the content files uploaded to the network. As the blockchain hosting the Dapp, the Tron protocol benefits from this new network activity. In the lead up to the release, The BitTorrent token and Tronix have risen 8% and 10%, respectively, in the last week.

8th July- Launch of the Celer Network

One of 2019’s most visible IEO projects, Celer launches its full mainnet this Monday. The Celer Network is building an advanced layer-2 scaling platform designed to allow the development of fast, easy-to-use, low-cost Dapps. Market anticipation for the event has been muted and the price of the native CELR token has fallen 8% in the last week.

Following a strong close to the week, most large caps had a green 7 days lead by gains from market leaders Ethereum and Bitcoin. CME announced on Friday that it would update its ETH reference rate and index to include pricing from the itBit exchange. The move implies the possible release of a cash-settled ETH future on CME in the near future.

Bitcoin prices continued to march forward finding strong support against bearish selling pressure early in the week. The price of BTC bounced strongly above the USD10,000 level implying that ‘5 digit’ Bitcoin remains a key psychological price level.