Altcoins ready to fire, Bitcoin loses sight of $10,000-Elormadj_Fx Blog

Markets

The cryptocurrency market is mainly in the red on Monday as we usher in the European session. The weekend session was dominated by consolidation led by the Bitcoin and Ethereum. The altcoins that exploded last week such as Tezos, Chainlink, Cardano, and Stellar also slowed down the price action.

According to CoinMarketCap, there has been a very minor change in the total market capitalization from Sunday’s $273 billion to the current $274 billion. The exchange recorded trading volume increased to $55 billion from $49 billion recorded in the same period.

Bitcoin still leads in terms of market share with a dominance of $62.2%. However, altcoins seem to be gaining ground against Bitcoin as their market share keeps increasing. The increase is attributed to the bullish action among the above-mentioned altcoins.

BTC/USD is trading lower by 0.19% from the opening value on Monday. Gains have not been forthcoming especially with the seller congestion at $9,300. More resistance is anticipated at $9,400 and $9,500. The ongoing lull and consolidation are likely to carry on throughout the trading sessions on Monday. BTC/USD is holding above $9,250 as bulls work hard to keep the price above $9,200.

ETH/USD is slightly in the green as bulls continue to exhibit strength in holding above the support at $240 as reported on Sunday. Ether is up 0.24% on an hourly basis and 0.46% daily. ETH/USD is trading at $242 while all the focus directed at the resistance at $245 and $250 respectively.

XRP/USD is up over 11% in the last seven days but down 0.6% in the last 24 hours. Although pivotal at $0.20, sellers seem to be having their way. Last week the gains stepped above $0.21 before suddenly hitting a wall. Meanwhile, sideways trading is likely to dominate the trading on Monday. If declines increase momentum, support is envisioned at $0.1950 and $0.19 in that order.

Among the top 100 cryptocurrencies, some tokens continue to ignore the selling pressure including Cardano (5.8%), Chainlink (29.19%), Tezos (10.58%), Zcash (9.80%), Elrod (11.09%), Flexacoin (24.87%), and SwissBorg (12.62%).

Market

Decentralize finance (DeFi) within the Ethereum network is booming and Bitcoin is the secondary beneficiary. Bitcoin price, on the other hand, continues to disappoint most investors, especially the once who anticipated a rise above $10,000 in June. The trading in July has been motionless with BTC/USD holding above $9,200 and unable to break above $9,400.

Many analysts now say that Bitcoin has managed to hold above $9,000 only because of the boom in the DeFi ecosystem witnessed in the last three months. The DeFi ecosystem includes services such as crypto lending, derivatives, and payments among others. Some of the most promising DeFi tokens include Compound and Crypto.com Coin. The compound gives users opportunities to borrow and lend from a pool of assets.

Bitcoin benefits in the sense that most traders buy and sell the tokens against BTC. This means that they have to get the first Bitcoin to trade. Note that there is more than $241 million in Bitcoin currently locked in DeFi which is helping Bitcoin to acquire the much-needed buoyancy.

Industry

Poloniex exchange is joining other crypto trading platforms in offering 100x leverage on Bitcoin futures. The move comes after the firm announced the launch of the Poloniex Futures platform. With the platform, users will be able to utilize BTC perpetual swaps with USDT functioning as collateral to gain access to the 100x leverage.

Traders can now long or short BTC with futures contracts that operate without a set expiration date. Traders already using Poloniex spot trading, margin, and lending platforms will have a smooth transition to the platform without having to register again. The new feature can be trialed on the demo platform with users having 10,000 USDT.

Regulation:

Officials of the G20 summit said on July 11 that they intend to commence regulatory groundwork tailored towards the acceptance of cryptocurrency payments. The guidelines are expected to start in October preferably at the G20 Finance Ministerial and Deputies Meetings to be held in Washington DC. The changes are coming in light of China working on the launch of the digital yuan as well as Facebook’s Libra.