Crypto Market Forecast: The week ahead, 11th February
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Following a tepid start to the week for crypto, markets burst into life last Thursday and a number of major assets ended the trading week strongly green. Crypto benchmark Bitcoin, for example, was up ~4% while ETH ended the week up 9%. The week’s stand-out was Litecoin, which rose an impressive ~36%, and pushed aside EOS to claim the number 4 spot in the digital asset market cap tables.
The overall crypto market cap rose ~7%, with some divergent performance amongst large to mid-cap tokens evidencing the importance of diversifying between alts when trading with shorter term horizons. Some, like BNB, rose as much as ~36% during the week, versus a token like REP which fell by ~6%.
LTC investors were buoyed by news of a potential ‘Mimblewimble‘ integration for the Litecoin blockchain. The protocol enhancement should add to the privacy and scalability of LTC transactions. The token also has excellent medium term horizons because of a block reward reduction (halvening) expected to occur mid-year.
Privacy tokens remain popular and important in the space because of the high level of immutability they offer (minimal digital footprints left behind by users). As such, privacy tokens are the closest thing to real digital ‘cash’ available in the ecosystem today. Market leading privacy token Monero (XMR) rose ~10% in the last week, while recently released Mimblewimble coin GRIN rose 6%.
Bitcoin’s lightning network received a massive mainstream endorsement when Twitter and Square CEO, Jack Dorsey ‘passed on the torch‘ of a lightning transaction. The interaction demonstrated the accessibility and ease of using Lightning for microtransactions. The number of lightning channels is up 27% in the last month, while network capacity (cumulative bitcoin capacity across all channels) is up 15% over the same period, and currently sits at 657.06 BTC.
With platforms like Binance now offering users the ability to buy crypto directly with bank cards and Abra now letting users purchase stocks with crypto, the digital asset ecosystem is gradually building stronger infrastructure and mainstream access points that should serve in reversing bearish sentiment and aid investors in building longer term horizons.
Upcoming events in crypto
February 12th-14th – ETHDenver buildathon
ETHDenver is the largest buildathon/hackathon in the world for Ethereum enthusiasts and developers and will include events around DApp building, UI/UX design and how to contribute to infrastructure projects. Sponsors include Consensys, Shapeshift and Keepkey, while judges and presenters include Andreas Antonopoulos, Caitlin Long and Taylor Monahan.
February 13th – CBOE Bitcoin expiration date
This Wednesday the latest round of CBOE XBT futures ends. The nature of futures contracts means they need to be settled on a set, predefined date, based on a contract. All CBOE contracts will have to be traded, or settled, before this date. There is generally a fall in the trading volume of futures around expiration dates, that coincides with a rise in volatility and potential short/long squeezing.
February 17th (expected) – WAVES smart assets operational
The Waves token issuance protocol is due to gain a significant upgrade with the implementation of code for Smart Assets. Waves Smart Assets features a capacity to freeze and tax newly issued tokens, making new Waves tokens similar in style to the Ethereum based ERC-20 token. The price of WAVES has risen 4.5% in the last month.
It was a strong trading week for a number of large cap crypto asset with EOS, LTC and new top 10 mover BNB, all recording double digit gains. As opposed to BNB and LTC, it is more difficult to judge why EOS has had such a strong trading week. It may have been an extra push delivered by moving from a position of being oversold. Recent momentum surrounding its growing usage as a platform to run gambling DApps may also be a factor driving momentum.
Following the price surges on Friday, the price of BTC has settled around the ~$3600 level as it gears up for its next move. Some traders on twitter have made bold calls on short term price movements following the emergence of bullish technical signals, however, the prudent trader is likely to wait for more clear signals to emerge before making their next move.
Hashrate of the Bitcoin network has risen alongside price over the last week indicating continuing interest to mine on the network. Block generation times currently sit at ~9.6 minutes per block.
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