Bitcoin
Bitcoin grew by a little more than 3% in the week from January 26 to February 2, 2024. BTC spent all seven days in a fairly narrow range from $41,800 to $43,900. The strengths of the bulls and bears were approximately equal: four positive sessions were accompanied by three negative ones.
Source: tradingview.com
One of the main news of the week was the speech of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.. As expected, the American regulator left the key rate unchanged, in the range of 5.25-5.5%. However, the head of the American central bank was not encouraging about the future. Investors assumed that at the next Fed meeting in March 2024 there would definitely be a rate cut. However, Jerome Powell was much less optimistic:
“I don’t think that by the next meeting the Fed committee will have the confidence to call March the time to cut rates. But we'll see.”
Crypto investors reacted to the rhetoric of the head of the Federal Reserve relatively calmly. However, the BTC rate still fell by 0.9% on the day of the official’s speech.
There is some positive news. Bitcoin accumulation trend indicator is at a three-year high. The information was shared by trader Ali Martinez with a link to Glassnode:
“One of the most serious accumulation streaks in almost three years is observed! It is noteworthy that the trend indicator has been fluctuating around one for four months now, signaling that large players are accumulating BTC. This trend is a sign of great confidence in the market!”
From the point of view of technical analysis, growth followed the correction. The RSI indicator exceeding 50 indicates a new attempt by the bulls to take over the market. The 50-day moving average (marked in orange) is level with the price, which rather indicates some kind of one-time parity between buyers and sellers. Support and resistance levels: $38,505 and $44,729 respectively.
Source: tradingview.com
The Fear and Greed Index is up 14 points from last week.. New value – 63. This suggests that the greed of Bitcoin investors prevails over fear.
Ethereum
Ether increased in value by slightly less than 1.55% for the week from January 26 to February 2, 2024. At its maximum on Tuesday, January 30, the coin came close to $2,400. However, it was not possible to stay there, and ETH dropped below $2,300.
Source: tradingview.com
Ether's modest rise is hardly a new bullish rally. However, it coincided with a noticeable increase in activity on the Ethereum network. The analytical platform Santiment noted an increase in network activity: 101,000 new addresses appear daily. Another growth indicator was the number of unique addresses per day: 484,000.
And Ethereum developers continue to prepare for an update to the Dencun main network. It will reduce gas fees. Last week, the platform team implemented Dencun on the Sepolia test network. A developer under the pseudonym terence.eth on the social network X (formerly Twitter) ironically apologized for the fact that the update went off without incident. Before Dencun is implemented on the main network, there is one last step remaining – it is planned to launch on the Holesky test network on February 7.
From the point of view of technical analysis, the situation has remained virtually unchanged since last week.. The price is still below the 50-day moving average (indicated in yellow), and the RSI indicator is below 50, which is also a bearish signal. Support and resistance levels: $2,140.8 and $2,400, respectively.
Source: tradingview.com
Solana
Solana grew by 6.24% from January 26 to February 2. For several days, the cryptocurrency even traded above the important psychological mark of $100. However, a drop of more than 4% on January 31 took the coin lower. By the way, all other trading sessions ended in the green zone.
Source: tradingview.com
Like Ethereum, Solana is experiencing an increase in network activity. The volume of transactions on the blockchain in January 2024 was a record for the year and exceeded $1 trillion. This is 38.6% higher than the previous maximum monthly figure recorded in December 2023. At the same time, the SOL token accounted for $509.29 billion. This exceeds the December figure by 19.3%. However, the absolute records of December 2021 are still very far away. At that time, the transaction volume exceeded $59 trillion, and the volume per SOL token exceeded $21 trillion.
Source: theblock.co
In addition to online activity, there has been a surge in Solana trading on decentralized exchanges (DEXs). In terms of volume on such sites on January 31 and February 1, although not by much, Solana managed to get ahead of Ethereum.
Source: defillama.com
Technically, the picture for Solana is bullish. After a correction in the first weeks of January 2024, the SOL token rose in price by almost 35%. The location below the price of both the 50-day (indicated in orange) and 200-day (indicated in blue) moving averages speaks in favor of the bulls. Support and resistance levels = $78.87 and $106.39 respectively.
Source: tradingview.com
Conclusion
Thus, cryptocurrencies have grown slightly over the past week. However, new positive market signals are needed to initiate a serious bullish rally. In the meantime, Jerome Powell did not please, the accumulation of Bitcoin by large investors continues, and the Ethereum investor is preparing for the Dencun update.
This material and the information contained herein do not constitute individual or other investment advice. The opinion of the editors may not coincide with the opinions of the author, analytical portals and experts.