Crypto Market Forecast: Week of April 12th 2021

The digital asset market had a strong week with many large-cap assets rising to price levels above or around all-time highs. The Bitcoin price ends the week up 2%, while the Ethereum price and Binance Coin price rose by ~4% and ~44% respectively.

While BTC flirted with a new all-time high, ETH and BNB both hit new ones. The price of Ether hit a new ceiling of ~US$2195 on Saturday before pulling back to trade around ~US$2135 at the time of writing. Binance Coin crossed the US$500 threshold for the first time ever on Monday and continues to rise and currently trades around ~US$525. Other Crypto assets that hit all-time highs late in the last week include Pancakeswap (CAKE), FTX Token (FTT), Solana (SOL).

A major driving force for the current crypto momentum is the upcoming Coinbase Initial Public Offering which is set for April 14th. Analysts and market participants are confident the Coinbase IPO will move the needle for crypto overall. Coinbase supports 58 digital assets for trading and its Q1 earnings call revealed it has 56 million registered users, with 6.1 million users conducting transactions on a monthly basis (MTUs). There are currently US$223 billion worth of assets on the platform, representing 11.3% of the total crypto market share. US$122 billion of these assets are from institutions. Coinbase has reached a position where it is the world’s largest gateway into crypto for both retail and institutional participants. It’s thought its IPO will legitimize a major chunk of the crypto industry by creating a bridge between the crypto and traditional financial sectors that has never existed before.

Coinbase’s ability to capture a huge share of the digital asset market has translated into impressive earnings and growth. In the first quarter of 2021, company revenue was US$1.8 billion. This was 9x more than it earned in the equivalent quarter the previous year and more revenue than it earned for the whole of 2020 (US$1.2 billion).

Bloomberg reports that Coinbase shares were trading between US$350-US$375 based on a recent auction giving the company a pre-IPO value of US$190 billion. On the back of Coinbase’s Q1 earnings, DA Davidson analyst, Gil Luria increased his price target for Coinbase shares by 125% to US$440 after initially setting them at US$195.

Crypto news for the week ahead

April 14th- ETH Berlin Hard fork

The Ethereum blockchain’s next major upgrade is set to occur with block height 12,244,00, expected to occur on 14th April 2021. Four Ethereum Improvement Proposals, EIP2565, EIP2929, EIP2718, and EIP2930, will be integrated. They will adjust gas costs for specific transaction types and make it easier to introduce new transaction types to future operations. This upgrade precedes a larger upgrade, London, that is set to occur in July.

April 12th – Filecoin (FIL) Network Upgrade and Hard Fork

A Filecoin (FIL) network upgrade is set to occur during epoch 665280. This will affect some of the withdrawals and deposits of FIL coins on exchanges on Monday. The upgrade will increase the maximum life of a specific type of proof sector, v1, to 540 days. The motivation behind this extension is because V1 proofs are currently being challenged with an “unrealistically high standard of security concerns.” The price of Filecoin is up 1% in the last week.

Trading set-ups for the week

Pro trader Josh Olszewicz explores trading options and signals for BTC and ETH – and lays out the trading setups he’s watching for the upcoming week. Start your week off right with Josh’s thoughts on trading strategies on a weekly basis.

Bitcoin, ALTs and Ethereum – Trading setup for the week of the 12th of April 2021

Top 10 Crypto Summary

It was a strong week of trading for large-cap assets on Brave New Coin’s market cap top 10. The undeniable top performer on the list was XRP (XRP). The remittance token rose ~115% and had one of its best trading weeks since December 2017. Markets reacted positively to a win for the Ripple legal team during an ongoing SEC lawsuit with a federal judge exempting Ripple’s executives from having to provide their personal financial records to the SEC.

Bitcoin Price Chart

Bitcoin (BTC) rose steadily over the last week but again faced heavy resistance at the USD60,000 price level near all-time highs. Signals from the futures market suggest that traders expect this price barrier to be crossed by June. Bitcoin futures with a June 2021 expiry are priced at US$64880 on FTX and 61450 on the CME, a spread between prices in the futures and spot markets is forming, and this phenomenon is known as Contango.