Proactive Investors - Bitcoin’s moving averages were the subject of much scrutiny last week, at least by the boffins we call technical analysts.
The theory went that a ‘golden cross’ was about to occur, i.e. the 50-day moving average was poised to move above the 200-day moving average, a sure-fire sign of a big rally on the way, according to the optimists.
Those moving averages are effectively kissing each other now, yet the BTC/USDT pair is starting to move in the wrong direction, having closed lower for the fourth straight day on Sunday after dipping below 1.7% to US$22,900.
Further losses this morning have pushed their pair to US$22,800. Not substantial losses by any means, but the fact that 23k has flipped from support to resistance for the short term comes as a disappointment for bitcoin bulls.
Bitcoin (BTC) moving averages approach a ‘golden cross’ – Source: binance.com
Two catalysts to consider are the pretty terrible earnings calls from big tech last week, which were a bit of a buzzkill, and a wary equities market as investors wait to see what Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell has to say on Tuesday.
Equities investors want Powell to give a strong signal to dovish monetary policy; he’s been reticent so far, but allusions to an end to rate hikes could prove a strong bullish catalyst. We’ll have to wait until Tuesday evening to find out.
Ethereum (ETH) closed 2.2% lower at US$1,630 on Sunday, though this morning has seen the ETH/USDT pair push a few pips higher.
The ETH/BTC pair, which has been surprisingly strong lately, has started to channel sideways after gaining over 5% during the first four days of February.
Altcoins dip overnight
As for the broader altcoin space, the market-weighted CoinDesk Market Index (CMI) fell 2.6% overnight. All large-cap altcoins, including Ripple (XRP), Solana (SOL), Polygon (MATIC), Dogecoin (DOGE) and Cardano (ADA) posed losses in the low-single digits.
Overnight gains were relegated to more niche tokens, including ‘decentralised AI marketplace' SingularityNET (AGIX), which rallied 24% overnight, and indexing protocol The Graph (GRT), which added 15%.
Global cryptocurrency markets capitalisation is currently US$1.06tn, having shed 2% in the past 24 hours, while total volumes locked in the decentralised finance (DeFi) space dipped 1.5% to US$48.4bn.