By
Steve Muchoki
April 19th, 2024
Altcoins led by Ethereum have been the major contributors to the price rally. On the other hand, Bitcoin faces a strong resistance at its 200-week moving average.
Crypto investors are rejoicing as the broader crypto market has surged past $1.02 trillion with Bitcoin and altcoins delivering a strong show over the last week. Bitcoin (BTC) gained 10% on the weekly charts and is currently trading above $22,000.
On the other hand, Ethereum has been leading the altcoin pack gaining more than 40% on the weekly charts. With this, ETH is currently trading at a price above $1,500. Altcoins, led by ETH have been major contributors taking the crypto market above $1 trillion. The ETH price rallied as developers announced that The Merge upgrade on the Ethereum mainnet shall arrive by mid-September.
Along with ETH, some other top altcoins have also witnessed a strong rally. Ethereum Layer-2 scalability platform Polygon has seen its native cryptocurrency MATIC shooting 60% over the last week. As of now, Polygon’s MATIC is currently trading at $0.92 with a market cap of $7.3 billion.
The MATIC price has been shooting over the last week as Disney picks Polygon for its Accelerator Program. Although Disney hasn’t unveiled the exact role for Polygon, the company will focus on new developments in the AR, NFT, and AI space.
Along with MATIC, other Ethereum Layer-1 competitors performed well last week. Solana (SOL) gained 30% while Avalanche (AVAX) gained more than 35%.
Interestingly, the crypto market has been gaining despite the uncertain macro environment. Last week, The US reported its June inflation numbers to be above 9%. Ahead this month, the Federal Reserve is likely to announce a 75 basis points rate hike.
Will the Bitcoin and Altcoins Market Rally Sustain?
Now, the bigger question for investors is where will Bitcoin and the market head from here onwards. BTC has been facing several rejections around its 200-week moving average i.e. 22,300 levels. Even now Bitcoin is just trading under this level. Thus, investors can see a fat breakout above or a fat breakdown.
That damn 200-week moving average just keeps being a sticky line for #bitcoin! pic.twitter.com/VnYSTcOcsT
— Lark Davis (@TheCryptoLark) July 19, 2022
On the other hand, on-chain data provider Santiment noted that the market sentiment remains negative despite the price jump with the crowd having little belief in this rebound.
📈 #Ethereum's return above $1,500 for the first time since June 12th appears to be happening as the crowd has little belief in this rebound. Despite this, the average $ETH return of 30-day traders has ballooned to +28%, the highest since August, 2021. https://t.co/KsTbw9Iaev pic.twitter.com/7oqdGgK9pB
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) July 18, 2022
The US stock markets ended in red on Monday, July 18, starting the week on a negative note. The crypto market is holding up well so far, but if the negative sentiment persists on Wall Street going ahead this week, it can impact the crypto market as well.