There was big news at the start of last week, when the cryptocurrency market surpassed the $2 trillion mark for the first time since the rally in May. It’s an impressive feat, especially considering it was only just above $1 trillion around a month ago. Could we be on the verge of another bull market?
Overall, the picture is looking positive.
The five biggest climbers this week have been avalanche (up 135%), arweave (up 81.9%), audius (up 73.6%), near (up 68.6%), and solana (up 63.8%). Big names that have also achieved substantial rises include cardano,up a respectable 19%, and polkadot, which has climbed by 18.2%.
No major cryptocurrencies (within the top 100 with the largest market cap) have fallen dramatically in value. The biggest loser is BitTorrent, which has dropped by 10.8%; just behind are ravencoin (down 8.6%) and unisweap (down 7.9%).
$50,000 Tageted by Bitcoin
Ethereum and bitcoin both began the week with a promising start, but this didn’t quite last — bitcoin only managed a moderate climb of 3.6%, while ethereum’s value ended up declining by 2.9%. Still, bitcoin is approaching the $50,000 mark for the first time since May (it’s currently just below $49,000), which is another significant milestone.
Yet, despite price rises, there have now been sixth consecutive weeks of Bitcoin outflows, with many investors opting to withdraw the cryptocurrency out of exchanges. The coin is also experiencing low levels of daily trading. This could be down to typical seasonal trends — many traders want to take time off over summer — but it’s above normal considering it’s the longest streak since January 2018.
There was also an outflow of ethereum, while big winners cardano and polkadot both experienced inflows (meaning more people transferred these cryptocurrencies into exchanges).
NFT Continues to Rise
Meanwhile, NFT trading has risen dramatically, with the dominant marketplace OpenSea reporting eight times more trades over the past week than it achieved even in March. Clearly, NFTs aren’t going anywhere soon.
Another winner has been Robinhood — the trading exchange has continued to see increases in its cryptocurrency trading, which made up 41% of the firm’s total revenue in Q2. Although this could be a potential cause of concern for the trading app, which would prefer to diversify, it’s a strong signal about where the future of trading is heading.
Over in China, there have been some interesting developments. 35 Chinese banks have added the soon-to-be national currency, the digital yuan, to their mobile apps. This is a significant increase from the six pioneers that adopted the cryptocurrency initially, and it seems that 94 banks are to follow suit.
The Chinese government’s crackdown on all other cryptocurrencies is no secret, but their resolve appears to be strengthening. Last week, the Shenzhen branch of the country’s central bank announced plans to “clean up and rectify” companies involved with crypto trading.
However, this has benefitted other parts of the globe — Canadian mining company Bitfarms enjoyed a 396% revenue increase in Q2 compared to the same quarter next year. The firm expects to achieve even more significant gains in the coming years.
There were a few successful funding rounds last week, too. Austrian exchange Bitpanda raised $263 million in a round headed by PayPal founder Peter Thiel, which the firm hopes will help it secure a place of dominance in the crypto market. Meanwhile, blockchain company Figment raised $50 million to create a new proof-of-stake infrastructure, and blockchain security company CertiK made $24 million in funding,
Crypto Comes to Soccer
In more amusing news, dogecoin has struck up an unexpected partnership with British football team Watford F.C., which has incorporated the iconic Shibu Inu onto the team’s shirt sleeves. The deal was worth almost $1 million and is just one more example of how cryptocurrencies are gradually shifting into the mainstream.
As for the bad news, there was a major crypto heist last week on the popular cryptocurrency exchange Liquid, which is one of the biggest 20 in the world by trading volume. Traders from the Japanese exchange lost around $100 million as a result. Liquid is working to increase security, but doubts remain after it’s the second Japanese platform to suffer significant losses and the second to have been hacked over the last few days.
Current Holdings in Crypto Alpha One Portfolio
Remember, this is not invest or trading advice. Do you own research before investing. Cryptocurrencies are very volatile and you can lose all of your money.