Crypto Market Forecast: W/C 30th November 2020
A curated weekly summary of forward-focused crypto news that matters. This week, the Bitcoin price is volatile as it approaches its all-time-high, more institutional investors entering crypto, and the ETH 2.0 genesis block is on schedule for December 1st.
After coming within $600 of its 2017 all-time-high last Tuesday, the Bitcoin price ended the week up ~1% and trading just above USD18,300. It was a volatile week for BTC, however, as on Thursday it traded as low as USD16,430 on the Brave New Coin BLX. By week’s end crypto markets had recovered well from the early week sell-off, with most of the losses wiped off.
The Ethereum price was down by 1% and the Ripple Price ended up 30%. The overall market cap for crypto rose by ~1% for the week.
Optimism reigned at the beginning of the week as Bitcoin appeared ready to challenge new all-time highs and the USD20,000 price level. On Tuesday the BTC price touched USD19,430 before experiencing sharp sell-offs and then a subsequent recovery. Large-cap altcoin markets like ETH, XRP, Chainlink (LINK), and Litecoin (LTC) observed even more aggressive price swings and volatility. The price of XRP started the week at USD0.468, touched USD0.740 on Tuesday, dropped to USD0.468 by Thursday, before picking up over the weekend and ending the week near USD0.612.
Search interest for XRP has spiked in the second half of November and is now touching levels not seen since December 2017. Renewed interest in XRP has been driven by price gains of over 153% in the last three days, an upcoming airdrop to XRP holders of a much-hyped Flare network token, and a new initiative by the Ripple company to buy back XRP to promote healthy markets.
Several market analysts assessed that the Bitcoin price correction was overdue in the short term. Indicators like the Relative Strength Index (RSI) show that BTC was substantially overbought before the pullback occurred on Thursday. The crypto fear and greed index has also been suggesting that markets have been at the point of ‘extreme greed’ since at least the 9th of November, implying that sentiment for digital has also been overheating.
Crypto index fund provider Stack Funds said the move down was a “healthy correction” that was needed to continue Bitcoin’s overall bullish momentum. Corrections during a bullish trend cycle allow buyers who were on the fence about buying at higher BTC prices to jump in at a more desirable price level.
In the background to the week’s aggressive price action, a filing made by investment firm Guggenheim Partners started a buzz that it may be the next Wall Street giant to make a digital currency investment. With over $200 billion assets under management, the firm invests across asset classes on behalf of companies, pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds. The filing stated “The Macro Opportunities Fund may seek investment exposure to bitcoin indirectly through investing up to 10% of its net asset value in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (‘GBTC’), a privately offered investment vehicle that invests in bitcoin," The Macro Opportunities Fund is one of Guggenheim’s best-known vehicles with more than $5 billion in assets.
Crypto news for the week ahead
December 1st – ETH 2.0 Phase 0 genesis
The genesis block of the Ethereum 2.0 beacon chain has been confirmed for December 1st. The launch was set after 524,288 Ether (ETH), the minimum necessary threshold required for the viable deployment of ETH2.0’s beacon chain, was sent to the ETH 2.0 deposit contract. This was the earliest possible start date for the Beacon Chain and has been lauded as a significant milestone in the progression of the Ethereum blockchain. The price of ETH recovered heartily from the mid-week market slump and is up ~53% for the month.
December 2nd – Horizen block reward halving
Horizen (ZEN) is a privacy-oriented project formerly known as Zencash that differentiates itself with a unique sidechain-based architecture. It is set to conduct a block reward halving on Wednesday. The total number of ZEN rewards awarded per block will reduce from 12.5 ZEN to 6.25 ZEC. A halving is often expected to lead to higher prices because it reduces the amount miners can sell each day for operational expenses. Assuming demand for ZEN at the same level, the price of the asset can be expected to rise post halving. The price of ZEN rose ~60% in the last week in expectation of the halving.
Top 10 Crypto Summary
It turned out to be a strong week for large-cap assets on the Brave New Coin market cap top 10 despite the strong mid-week corrections. The top performer on the list was the Stellar (XLM) payment protocol token which rose by over 90% in the last week. Brave New Coin analyst Josh Olszewicz said in a price analysis released on November 26th that technicals for both the XLM/USD and XLM/BTC pairs show bullish trend metrics. Stellar founder Jeb McCaleb appeared with Andy Pickering on an episode of The Crypto Conversation earlier in November.
Bitcoin Price Chart
A see-saw week in Bitcoin markets ended with BTC trading green. Fundamental metrics show that investor interest in BTC has exploded this year. The Bitcoin options market has observed strong growth this year with aggregated trading volumes up over 600% since the start of the year.
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