From July 21 to July 28, 2023, the value of bitcoin fell 2.19%. The week passed in the negative, in fact, at the expense of one trading session on Monday, July 24, when BTC collapsed immediately by 3.02%. The highest trading volume was also observed on the same day.
Source: tradingview.com
The Federal Reserve (Fed) met again this week to announce another 0.25% increase in the benchmark rate. Thus, the indicator reached a range of 5.25%-5.5%. That’s the highest Fed Funds rate in more than 22 years.
However, investors reacted rather sluggishly to the news as nothing super unexpected happened. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell did exactly what everyone expected him to do. Much more interesting is whether he’ll allow another rate hike. This will be decided depending on the situation in the economy in general, and with inflation in particular.
But there is some positive data for bitcoin, too. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) recorded record demand for BTC and ETH futures contracts from major players. Immediately, 107 investors held at least 25 futures on the first cryptocurrency in the second quarter of 2023.
For now, bitcoin continues to slide down a little bit at a time. This week’s low for last month was updated to $28,842. This mark is now a support level. The resistance level is $31,818.
Source: tradingview.com
The Fear and Greed Index didn’t change much over the week – it rose two points and now stands at 52. However, it still remains in the neutral zone as it was a week ago.
Etherium
The price of ether fell less, down 1.52% compared to bitcoin. The second most capitalized cryptocurrency never managed to consolidate above $1,900. Volatility over the seven days was quite low, with only one day on July 24 showing a price change of more than 2%.
Source: tradingview.com
That said, the trend of small movements in the value of ether is much more global in nature. According to the data.geeks.live platform, the current volatility of the coin is the lowest in its history. The minimum value was reached on July 23.
Source: data.greeks.live
Also data.greeks.live cites some interesting stats on options on air. The most opened derivatives with a strike of $1,900. At the same time, there are more call options than put options. What does that tell us?
Strike is the strike price, that is, the price of ether at which the writer of an option commits to sell it on a call or put option. Since the largest number of derivatives are open at $1,900, it means investors predominantly believe in the cryptocurrency’s growth above that mark.
Source: data.greeks.live
From a technical analysis perspective, ether continues to range between $1,800 and $2,000, which are support and resistance levels. There is no pronounced trend in cryptocurrency at the moment.
Source: tradingview.com
Ripple
Ripple (XRP) fell more than bitcoin and ether combined – by more than 8%. From its 2023 high of nearly $0.95, XRP has already lost more than 25%. Of the last nine trading sessions, only three ended in the positive, with growth never exceeding 1%.
Source: tradingview.com
That said, the decline in recent days is not preventing Ripple from being the most traded altcoin in 2023 (excluding ethereum and stablecoins). Its turnover is currently over $150 billion – 1.5 times that of Solana. This information was provided by analytics platform Kaiko.
A number of current data points favor Ripple to grow further. For example, a member of the XRP community on Twitter under the nickname xspectDC reported that the number of addresses with at least 1 million tokens has risen to 1,900, and those with 100 million tokens or more has risen to 199 addresses. In addition, open interest in the coin stands at $1.2 billion, a two-year high.
In terms of technical analysis, the near-term resistance level is $0.732. At the same time, the long-term target remains $0.95. The support level is around $0.67. XRP is trading above both the 50-day (indicated in blue) and 200-day (indicated in green) moving averages, which is a bullish signal.
Source: tradingview.com
Thus, cryptocurrencies continued their slow decline this week. At the same time, Ripple showed the worst dynamics compared to bitcoin and ether. The Fed meeting and key rate hike did not impress investors: there was no massive sell-off.
This material and the information in it does not constitute personalized or other investment advice. The opinions of the editorial staff may not coincide with the opinions of the author, analytical portals and experts.