Altcoins, led by Ethereum, were the main contributors to the price rally. On the other hand, bitcoin faces strong resistance at its 200-week moving average.
Cryptocurrency investors rejoice as the broader crypto market surpassed $1.02 trillion, with bitcoin and altcoins showing great vitality in recent days. Bitcoin gained 10% on the weekly charts and is currently trading above $22,000.
On the other hand, Ethereum has taken the lead among the altcoins, gaining over 40% on the weekly charts. ETH is currently trading at a price above $1,500. Altcoins, led by ETH, have been instrumental in pushing the crypto market above $1 trillion. The price of ETH rallied as the developers announced that The Merge upgrade on the Ethereum mainnet will arrive in mid-September.
Aside from ETH, other top altcoins also saw strong gains. Ethereum’s Layer 2 scalability platform, Polygon, has seen its native cryptocurrency, MATIC, surge 60% in the past week. Currently, Polygon’s MATIC is trading at $0.92 with a market capitalization of $7.3 billion.
MATIC’s price has skyrocketed over the past week as Disney chose Polygon for its accelerator program. While Disney hasn’t disclosed Polygon’s exact role, the company will focus on new developments in the AR, NFT, and AI space.
Along with MATIC, other Ethereum Layer 1 competitors have performed well over the past week. Solana (SOL) gained 30%, while Avalanche (AVAX) gained over 35%.
Interestingly, the cryptocurrency market has grown despite an uncertain macroeconomic environment. Last week, the United States reported inflation above 9% for the month of June. This month, the Federal Reserve is expected to announce a rate hike of 75 basis points.
Will the bitcoin and altcoin market rise continue?
Now, the most important question for investors is where bitcoin and the market will go from here. BTC faced several rejections around its 200-week moving average, namely the 22,300 levels. Even today, bitcoin is trading just below this level. So investors can see a big breakout above or a big breakdown.
That damn 200-week moving average just keeps being a sticky line for #bitcoin! pic.twitter.com/VnYSTcOcsT
—Lark Davis (@TheCryptoLark) July 19, 2022
On the other hand, on-chain data provider Santiment noted that the market sentiment remains negative despite the rise in price, with individuals hardly believing in this rebound.
📈 #Ethereum‘s return above $1,500 for the first time since June 12th appears to be happening as the crowd has little belief in this rebound. Despite this, the average $ETH return of 30-day traders has ballooned to +28%, the highest since August, 2021. https://t.co/KsTbw9Iaev pic.twitter.com/7oqdGgK9pB
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) July 18, 2022
US stock markets ended in the red on Monday July 18, starting the week on a negative note. The cryptocurrency market is holding up well so far, but if the negative sentiment persists on Wall Street this week, it may impact the cryptocurrency market as well.