Crypto Market Forecast: Week of September 20th 2021

Performance across the digital asset markets was mixed in the last week, with gainers led by a bullish Bitcoin (BTC). The market’s largest and oldest asset was up ~2% to end the week. Ethereum (ETH) and Cardano (ADA), the second and third largest assets in the crypto markets, fell by ~4% and ~13% respectively.

The industry received a strong tailwind after Coinbase, the Nasdaq listed crypto exchange, announced that it will seek to bolster its balance sheet with a US$1.5 billion sale. Coinbase says the raise will be used for general corporate purposes such as investments in product development and the future acquisitions of other companies and technology solutions. Excess demand pushed Coinbase to increase the size of the sale to US2$billion. According to The Economic Times, over $7 billion worth of orders were placed to compete for equal quantities of 7 and 10-year bonds.

Demand for crypto trading solutions is also growing rapidly, outpacing the demand to trade legacy markets, according to mobile app data. Data from iOS and Android app-monitoring platform Apptopia reports that Coinbase Pro was the fastest-growing app in finance in the second week of September with a 319% increase in downloads. Voyager, an app that supports the trading of over 60 digital assets, saw a 234% surge in the same period. The mobile app for popular global exchange Binance was fourth on the list with a 120% increase in downloads.

The growth of crypto apps outpaced the growth of personal finance apps like Albert, banking apps like Bank of America Prepaid Mobile, and stock trading apps like Etoro and Stash. It’s clear that the retail crypto market is alive and kicking.

A new funnel for retail crypto users has opened in the UK with PayPal completing the rollout of its crypto service offering in the country. An announcement from PayPal on Twitter read, “We are delighted to share that all eligible customers in the UK can now buy, hold and sell #Cryptocurrencies #Bitcoin, #Ethereum, #BitcoinCash & #Litecoin from their PayPal account. Look out for it in the PayPal app.”

This will mark PayPal’s first crypto service offering outside of the United States. Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal’s general manager for blockchain, crypto, and digital currencies, told CNBC in an interview last month that PayPal’s crypto service has been doing “really well in the USA” and PayPal expects similar results in the UK.

The Crypto Fear and Greed index measures sentiment and emotions in crypto markets using data like price volatility, social media mentions, and momentum (moving averages). The Fear and Greed index is currently neutral. The crypto markets have had a volatile September with the price of BTC ranging from highs of ~52,600 on September 7th to lows of around ~44,200 on September 13th. Traders and investors feeling a ‘neutral’ sentiment suggests they are unsure of which direction markets will move next.

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 20th of September 2021

Crypto news for the week ahead

September 25th-26th – Cardano Summit

Cardano (ADA), the third-largest asset in crypto, will host its annual conference this week. The event will be held online and in-person. Leading Cardano community members and engineers will be present physically at London, Miami, Berlin, Cape Town, Wyoming (the location of IOHK’s headquarters), and New York for live events as part of the summit. There has been some buzz in the last week about Hydra, Cardano’s recently announced layer 2 scaling solution. ADA is down ~12% in the last week.

September 24th – Binance officially delists COVER

On Friday crypto trading giant Binance will officially delist the COVER token of decentralized insurance protocol, Cover. Binance will end the BUSD/COVER & ETH/COVER markets, as well as suspending deposits and withdrawals of the token. The delisting is occurring because the Cover and Ruler insurance protocols which underpin the token are being shut down and the UI removed. COVER is up ~3% in the last week.

Top 10 Crypto Summary

Bitcoin aside, performance in the digital asset markets was generally poor in the last week. Solana (SOL) was the biggest loser in the top 10, falling by almost 14%. Last week the Solana network experienced an outage for 16 hours due to high transaction loads. The blockchain appears to have suffered a coordinated denial of service attack. The network is back to running normally however the attack has shown that the network is not antifragile.

Bitcoin Price Chart

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) ends the week hovering around the US$47,000 price level. Glassnode reported last week that miners have gone into accumulation mode and are increasing their holdings of the asset instead of selling it. This indicates that miners, a key stakeholder in the bitcoin markets, are bullish about BTC’s future price prospects.