Crypto Market Forecast: The week ahead, 6th July

Crypto markets were largely unchanged last week with most large-cap assets falling by a few percentage points and the Bitcoin price down by ~2%. The Ethereum price rose ~1% while Ripple(XRP) was down ~1.

Perhaps the biggest crypto news of the week was that Coinbase, would allow Cardano (ADA) holders to stake their tokens using its institutional digital asset storage platform Coinbase Custody. This set ADA up to be the alpha performer amongst large caps assets and the Cardano price rose ~17%.

Cardona price has been trending up since late June – source BNC Data.

Cardano is currently in the process of transitioning to a decentralized Proof-of-Stake consensus model. Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithms use a pseudo-random selection process, where allocation is weighted based on the size of a node’s stake when selecting the miner of the next block. The model allows users who wouldn’t normally have the hardware to mine blocks, to contribute stake to a network miner and still earn income passively.

Another top 10 crypto, EOS (EOS), showed price resilience following the launch of a new blockchain-based social media application on its platform, called “Voice".

Voice functions as a decentralized version of platforms like Medium or Facebook. CEO Salah Michael Zalatimo says the platform aims to bring “transparency, authenticity and humanity” back to social media. While Voice was originally slated for release in the fall of 2019, a public Beta test started on July 4th. Users can now browse articles but still have to request access to post. Posters earn digital tokens for their content contribution.

This week Techemy Capital launched a set of investable DeFi portfolios on the TokenSets smart automated asset management platform. Techemy Capital’s new offering consists of two actively managed investment portfolios that will allow investors to gain exposure to BTC and ETH price action. Investors can now take advantage of crypto market price moves without having to trade. The new portfolios are also non-custodial, meaning investors don’t have to give up ownership of their assets to invest in these new portfolios

Crypto news for the week ahead

July 7th – Katalyst Kyber Network Protocol launch

Kyber is a liquidity protocol for implementing digital asset token swaps and will launch a new Decentralized Autonomous Organization on July 7th. Kyber Network (KNC) token holders will have the ability to stake their tokens for voting rights. Once the DAO is launched they will be able to vote on network fees, staking rewards, and rewards for liquidity providers. The price of KNC has risen ~47% in the last week in anticipation of the protocol.

July 7th – Tron 4.0 launch

Tron (TRX) is a platform blockchain that will launch the 4th version of its protocol on July 7th. Tron 4.0 will ship with a new ZK-Snark based smart contract privacy protocol, an upgrade to its blockchain consensus mechanism, a new protocol to enable communication with other public blockchains, and new facilities to support enterprise blockchains. The Tron price has risen ~5% in the last week in anticipation of the new protocol upgrade

Top 10 Crypto Summary

It was a middling week for assets in the Brave New Coin market cap with most assets only moving marginally and sideways. US dollar stablecoin Tether (USDT) has surged in popularity over the last year and it is now firmly established as the third-largest asset in cryptocurrency markets with a market cap close to US$10 Billion. Stablecoins tend to rise in popularity when traders are uncertain about future market movements and seek safe havens while waiting out choppy trading periods.

Bitcoin Price Chart

Bitcoin markets had another quiet week, moving by just under 2%. Data from skew analytics suggests the 1 month implied volatility for Bitcoin has just hit a low for the year, leading many analysts to suggest that a spike in volatility may be incoming. Recent technical analysis from Brave New Coin lead analyst Josh Olszewicz suggests that bullish momentum for the BTC/USD pair may be weakening. In his Quarter 2 markets review Olszewicz pointed out that BTC had risen 44% in Q2 2020, continuing its history of performing strongly during the Q2 period.

Watch a summary of this Q2 analysis and projections for Q3 on YouTube