2020 started out bullish for Bitcoin, which went to $10,500 in February, but it didn’t stay that way for long. In March, BTC crashed to $3,800, just like the majority of the global markets, including gold amidst concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.
The world’s leading digital currency made a spectacular recovery, pumping above $10,000 in early May. But since then, the range BTC has been trading in is gradually tightening, which has the digital asset now hovering around $9,100.
Many traders in the crypto space are currently expecting Bitcoin to break to the downside. According to trader Josh Rager, the digital asset is supposed to do a fake-out to the downside before we see a potential rally to a new all-time high, as we have seen in the past.
“We can see since 2017, multiple rallies followed by compressions that led to pullback, followed by another rally,” he said.
The deeper we get into this $BTC semi-slanted descending triangle-like thing the more likely I think it breaks to the downside.
Usually the deeper we go into the nose of shapes like this the more often we see it break down. Bullish breakouts are more often 2/3-3/4 full. pic.twitter.com/sLKu3rAbu0
— Jonny Moe (@JonnyMoeTrades) July 16, 2020
Yesterday, BTC/USD dropped to $9,026 after major Twitter accounts were hacked and used to ask for bitcoin in a typical crypto scam. This momentary disturbance in price had the altcoins turning red as well.
Someone tells you the largest twitter hack to date is about to go viral. It’ll include Elon musk, Jeff bezos & Bill Gates all promoting a bitcoin scam. Volatility is disgustingly cheap. Price hasn’t moved for 2 months. You bet the farm on a daily straddle. Bitcoin is still $9.2k.
— Ceteris Paribus (@ceterispar1bus) July 16, 2020
But still, a bunch of big and mid-cap crypto’s are managing to stay green. Tezos (XTZ) and Synthetix (SNX) are currently up over 3%. Numerous small-cap coins, however, are still managing to make good gains, including Matrix (316%), Super Bitcoin (120%), Patinetory (37%), Mainframe (33%), ReddCoin (24%) thanks to their extremely low volume.
Just Recycling or New Money
Bitcoin’s movement affected the altcoins as it always does, but for the past few weeks, altcoins have been performing really well.
It started with Dogecoin that saw more than 100% jump and a spike of about 1,000% in its trading volume after Zoomers decided to pump the coin on Tik Tok. These Robinhood traders haven’t been able to take DOGE to $1, but it started some activity in the crypto market that saw other coins pumping.
LINK was the hot crypto during this time, which made a new ATH every other day, so much so that for the first time, LINK perpetual futures was the most traded contract on FTX instead of BTC perpetual futures.
In terms of ‘real’ trading volume, LINK has officially gone above Ethereum, and as per market cap, it is now the 8th largest cryptocurrency.
Cardano (ADA) is also enjoying being the 6th largest crypto spot after several announcements, and anticipation around Shelley mainnet had it surging. Not to forget VET, which is just 35% away from its all-time high of $0.027.
A hot DeFi project Aave is also killing it, with 2,700% gains YTD. It also made a new ATH against BTC.
It’s not small cap coins such as LEND (2,157%), KNC (600%), ZRX (59%), DigiByte (186%), and ERD (603%) that are recording massive gains against BTC in 2020 so far, even the likes of ETH (43%), ADA (193%), LINK (256%), CRO (230%), XTZ (84%), XLM (60%), and VET (158%) are also outperforming Bitcoin except for XRP (-20.70%), LTC (-21.28%), EOS (-25%) and ATOM (-29%).
However, according to trader DonAlt, because major altcoins are not really popping, “there’s really nothing no new money coming into space,” which means it’s “just money recycling” — getting money from major coins and putting it into the smaller ones.