Bitcoin halted its losses with a flat trade over the weekend, in what can be summed up as a “it could have been worse” performance.
To keep you updated, the BTC/USDT trading pair took a 5% dive last Thursday following another regulatory crackdown, this time on the stake.
Although bitcoin is not directly affected by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) latest measure, sentiment across crypto markets worsened anyway, not helped by a subdued performance in equity markets.
Speaking to CNBC, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler accused cryptocurrency exchange Kraken of violating securities laws; Kraken’s US$30 million fine is unlikely to be the last.
Fortunately for those long on bitcoin, buyers found support around $21,600, and at the time of writing, BTC/USDT changed hands dead at $21,800.
Binance’s order book is showing some resistance at USD 21,820, which the bulls need to surpass to break above the key USD 23,000 price.
BTC/USDT bulls fend off further losses – Source: currency.com
Ethereum was quite volatile over the weekend, having fluctuated between US$1,490 and US$1,550 before opening Monday’s session at US$1,510 on the ETH/USDT pair.
ETH bulls have dug in at USD 1,495 per Binance order book, suggesting fairly stable support at current levels in the near term.
ETH/BTC has been an interesting play to watch lately, simply because of how unpredictable the pair has become. Still, the pair’s bearish performance since Gensler’s stake warning on Thursday makes complete sense, since Ethereum, as a proof-of-stake blockchain, has much more to lose than bitcoin.
In the altcoin space
The CoinDesk Market Index (CMI) has fallen over 5.5% since last Thursday, indicating selling pressure across the broader altcoin space as traders weigh the new regulatory battle lines.
Losses have been fairly even among the majors, with Cardano (ADA), Dogecoin (DOGE), Solana (SOL) Polkadot (DOT), and Shiba Inu (SHIB) all losing roughly 10% in the past week.
Tron (TRX), meanwhile, has outperformed the market by staying in the green. TRX has been buoyed by a series of notable announcements, including reduced trading fees on Binance, and a US$100 million AI development fund (undoubtedly capitalizing on interest around ChatGPT and other generative text protocols).
Top overnight riders include Zilliqa (ZIL) blockchain, Render Token (RNDR) and Layer-1 protocol Stacks (STX)
The global cryptocurrency market capitalization is currently $1.01 billion, with bitcoin’s market dominance at a fairly standard 43.63%.
In the decentralized financial area (DeF), total value locked (TVL) fell half a percent to 47.1 billion dollars overnight.
Liquid staking protocol Lido (LDO) remains the dominant DeFi protocol by TVL, accounting for around 17% of the entire DeFi market.
