Total market capitalization for cryptocurrency markets reached its highest level for over a year this weekend. Billions in new capital flooded into digital assets lifting the figure to $360 billion according to Tradingview.com. The move has eclipsed February’s high of around $300 billion and returned markets to their June 2019 peak of just above current levels. The massive momentum was halted by the mass liquidation of leveraged positions which caused a $20 billion flash crash in just an hour on Sunday. Major exchanges such as Binance and BitMEX allow often inexperienced traders to trade with massive leverage of up to 400x which, as was witnessed, can result in disastrous dumps.
Bitcoin price update
Bitcoin finally broke long term resistance, tapping a yearly high of $12,000 over the weekend. The new higher high on the chart can be viewed as a strong trend reversal signal, however for this to be fully confirmed, BTC must conquer last year’s price peak of just under $14k. The liquidation quickly dropped prices over 12%, but they returned to the $11,200 area at the time of writing. Seasoned trader and analyst, Josh Rager, was not concerned, recently posting; The move has lifted markets out of a three month range bound period and momentum is looking bullish again despite the weekend’s day trading shenanigans.
Ethereum in the driving seat
Ethereum has been the catalyst for cryptocurrency market momentum recently has it has broken past even longer term resistance to return to a psychological price level not visited since August 2018. Fueled by a burgeoning decentralized finance market, ETH prices began moving faster last week, surging by 70% in less than a fortnight to top out at $400. The final testing for the long awaited upgrade to ETH 2.0, which will bring in staking opportunities, is due to commence this week. This has renewed optimism for a full launch of the first phase of the network upgrade before the end of this year. Ethereum has been largely undervalued for the past two years, lulling at over 80% down from its all-time high, whereas its big brother Bitcoin has comfortably recovered to just 45%.
