Crypto Market Forecast: Week of April 5th 2021

A historically significant week in crypto markets ends with multiple tokens achieving new all-time highs. The second-largest asset on the Brave New Coin market cap table, Ethereum (ETH), rose ~20% in the last week and hit new all-time highs three days ago. It looks set to challenge even higher thresholds after a strong day of trading on Monday.

The Bitcoin price rose ~5% in the week but was outperformed by altcoins. Large-cap assets Binance Coin (BNB), XRP (XRP), and Polkadot (DOT) have risen ~39%, ~64%, and ~32% in the last week. BNB and DOT joined ETH in hitting new all-time highs.

Ethereum crossed the $2100 price level for the first time on Saturday not quite a week after Visa announced it would be launching a pilot program for partners to use the Ethereum blockchain to settle transactions made in fiat using the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin.

There is also strong market optimism for a soon-to-be-implemented Ethereum Improvement Proposal that will overhaul the network’s much-maligned fee structure. EIP1559 will replace the first-price auction model currently used to decide Ethereum smart contract gas fees with a base fee model. It is hoped this will remove some of the volatility and uncertainty associated with paying gas fees. It will also introduce a fee burn model for each transaction, that will add a deflationary element to the ETH currency and increase its appeal as a safe-haven, hard asset.

There are also signals from Ethereum options that bulls are positive about Ethereum’s near-term price future. Options analytics platform GenesisVolatility notes a surge in open interest for ETH options with a strike price of $3200 that expires on June 25th. This suggests a sizeable portion of the market believes that ETH will increase by at least 50% in the next three months.

Another bullish tailwind set to boost the crypto market in the coming weeks is Coinbase’s IPO, now confirmed for April 14th. The company is set to list publicly on the NASDAQ through a direct listing, instead of hiring a bank to broker the IPO, and will launch with the ticker symbol COIN. Coinbase will be the largest blockchain infrastructure company to list publicly and the IPO is set to be a watershed moment for the industry. Bloomberg reports that in private markets Coinbase has been valued at $90 billion.

Crypto news for the week ahead

6th April – Enjin launches Jumpnet

On Tuesday, the Enjin project is set to launch JumpNet, a high-speed bridge network with Ethereum that will allow for free instant transactions of Enjin coin and ERC-1155 NFT tokens. The NFT space has grown aggressively in 2021 but there are signs that it may be plateauing. Since the record-breaking Beeples $69 million Christie’s auction, daily NFT trading volumes have slid. The price of ENJ has risen 3% in the last week.

12th April – New assets launch on the Haven network

Haven Protocol, a Monero based project focused on building private, untraceable stablecoin options is launching four new assets xEUR (Euro), xCNY (Chinese Yuan), xAU (Gold), and xAG (Silver) at the end of the week. The price of the project’s native token, XHV, has risen ~7% 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 5th of April 2021

Top 10 Crypto Summary

It’s been a strong week for large-cap assets on the Brave New Coin market cap top 10 with many enjoying healthy double-digit gains. BNB rose ~39% in the last seven days and is now firmly established as the third-largest asset in the crypto space. According to data from DappRadar, the Binance Smart Chain, a smart contract platform supported by BNB, recently overtook Ethereum in both transaction volume and unique active wallets. It is directly challenging Ethereum’s dominance of the platform blockchain space.

Bitcoin Price Chart

Bitcoin had a strong week, however, the $60,000 price level was flatly rejected on multiple occasions last week as bulls attempted to challenge new all-time highs near $61500. In the last week, Bitcoin’s difficulty hit its highest levels ever. Despite this, daily miner revenue hit all-time highs in the last month and demand to mine the network is soaring.