Bitcoin challenges the $7,200 key resistance

Patience is likely to be the best of virtues for the next few days on the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin is still in a range between €6,050 and €6,600 ($6,600 and $7,200), offering reduced volatility. On April 22nd, Bitcoin gained 3.5% over the week to settle just above €6,400 ($7,000). Sellers have so far defended the €6,600 ($7,200) zone perfectly. There will be no major buy signal until this resistance is broken up.

On the altcoins side, Ethereum is doing a good performance this week with +15%, as Tezos which gains 15%. Let’s keep in mind that the situation on the world’s stock markets remains very tense, with indices such as the S&P500 arriving at potential bearish reversal zones. The last few days have been impacted by a sharp drop in oil prices, demonstrating that the world economy is still in a state of distress.

• According to CoinGecko, market capitalization is moving slowly, at $201 billion, down from $196 billion seven days ago.

• Bitcoin‘s dominance in the market is still declining, at 63%, down from 64% last week.

• Tezos (XTZ) offers the best performance of the week in the top 20: +18%.

• Oil prices (WTI) collapsed earlier this week on maturing futures contracts for the month of May, demonstrating an overabundance of oil and thus a slowing world economy.

We invite you to discover our full analysis in video (recorded on april 21, in french):

Bitcoin (BTC)

Coinhouse’s Recommendation: 
Wait

• Last week, we were advising to wait before taking a position on Bitcoin. This is still the case this week, as the price is still failing to break out of the €6,000 to €6,600 ($6,600 to $7,200) range. The turnaround zone, between €6,600 and €7,200 ($7,200 and $8,000), rejected the price again on April 19th.

• Buyers must therefore defend the €6,000 support. If this support is broken, it will be a signal to sell and the probability will be high that the price will fall back to at least the €5,200 ($5,800) zone.

• Conversely, if the price regains the €6,600 ($7,200) zone and breaks this resistance, it will be a buy signal to aim the €7,200 ($8,000) zone in the first place.

Ethereum (ETH)

Coinhouse’s Recommendation : 
Buy on support

• Ethereum is doing much better and gains 11% over one week, to settle above €160 ($175) on April 22nd.

• The support of €140 to €146 ($150 to $160) remains very solid and a return of the price to his contact may justify new purchases. The current uptrend could push the price into a potential reversal zone between €180 and €200 ($200 and $225), where the 0.618 Fibonacci retracement level of the mid-February to mid-March decline is located.

• Conversely, a break of $140 ($150) would be a sell signal and the chances would be high that the price regain the previous support of $115.

Ripple (XRP)

Coinhouse’s Recommendation : 
Wait

• Ripple (XRP) is stable over the week with +0.9%, and has risen above €0.17 ($0.18) on April 22nd.

• But the long-term trend (since January 2018) is still bearish on XRP. The €0.17 ($0.18) was just the first pivot zone to be crossed. The fact that the price only retraced the 0.382 Fibonacci retracement of the bearish trend from mid-February to mid-March shows the weakness of buyers on XRP. It’s the €0.19 ($0.20) zone that has been resisting lately.

• The area in which the course is currently located may justify purchases, but it is still risky. The bullish target would be a return to the 0.5 Fibonacci retracement at €0.21 ($0.23).

• Conversely, a €0.16 ($0.175) break would be a sell signal and the probability would be high that the price would return to the €0.12 ($0.14) support.

Top & flops of the week (top 50 marketcap)

Tops

1- Zcash (ZEC) : +27%
2- Tezos (XTZ) : +18%
3- Chainlink (LINK) : +14,8%

Flops

1- Bitcoin Gold (BTG) : -8%
2- IOTA : -2%
3- NEM (XEM) : -1,2%

Latest crypto news

• In 2017 everyone had the word "flippening" on their lips, referring to the day Ethereum would surpass Bitcoin in terms of market capitalization.
  It wasn’t until 2020 that another type of flippening took place.
  Ethereum now outperforms Bitcoin in terms of value traded on the network.
  This includes the trading of ETH but also all Ethereum tokens, and therefore the stablecoins.

• The first block of the Ethereum 2.0 blockchain has been successfully mined.
  For the moment, it is a test blockchain, but everything worked correctly.
  The way to Ethereum 2.0 in production is still very long.

• dForce’s decentralized finance platform was hacked for $25 million, representing virtually all of its assets.
  The company announced that same week that it had raised $1.5 million.
  The thief made mistakes in handling the funds that could lead to his identification.
  On April 21, after some exchanges with dForce, the hacker returned all the funds, it is not known in exchange for what.

• Libra officially abandons its plans to rely on a basket of currencies.
  Instead, there will be one Libra-dollar, one Libra-euro, and so on.
  The underlying in the form of a basket of currencies is what was causing the most problems for the regulators, especially the US Senate.
  This decision seems to show that the project has a pragmatic, non-ideological approach.

• dYdX announces the opening of perpetual Bitcoin futures contracts on its platform.
  The centralized BitMEX platform was the first to open such contracts for Bitcoin in 2014.
  This is the first time that these are available in a decentralized marketplace.
  Brick by brick, DeFi continues to build itself.

• The Gnosis teams have launched the Gnosis Protocol on the Ethereum mainnet.
  This is a new DEX (decentralized exchange), similar to Uniswap but with a very different functioning.
  Accessible via mesa.eth.link, this new protocol uses a system of Dutch auctions and "ring trades" to work.
  This will allow, in particular, to solve liquidity problems on assets that are currently illiquid. Gnosis still has some very interesting projects in the pipeline. To be continued.

• Institutional investors are positioning themselves massively on BTC and ETH if we believe Grayscale’s performance in Q1 2020.
  No less than $507 million in inflows have been registered with the US firm. Twice as much as in Q3 2019.

• Stablecoins now account for more than 80% of the volumes traded on the Ethereum platform.
  And of these, the vast majority are Tether.

• The number of bitcoins moved on the blockchain in the last 3 months is at its highest point, at more than 2 million, which shows a market with high liquidity.

• Tether created 480M units in one week, evidence that market demand for this asset continues to grow.

• The difficulty of Bitcoin mining is rising sharply again, and is likely to reach its highest point in a few days.

• The value of Bitcoin futures contracts on the CME exchange reaches $180 million, up 70% from March.

Investors’ attention is drawn to the fact that the content of the articles does not constitute investment advice.
Investment in cryptocurrencies carries a risk of total capital loss.
For more information, please do not hesitate to contact our customer support department.