Bitcoin started Tuesday morning with a slight decline, and by the time of writing, its value was balanced at $21,782.
According to virtual asset price tracking website CoinMarketCap, over the past 24 hours, the lowest value of bitcoin reached $21,649, and the highest was $22,439.
As a result of the past week, the price of bitcoin soared by 9.4%. At the same time, the past seven-day period turned out to be extremely volatile for the cryptocurrency. At the beginning of the week, bitcoin went into a sharp decline and collapsed to a peak low of $18,644, the lowest level for the current year. A spectacular price drop provoked a large-scale liquidation on the market: its volume exceeded $355 million in a day.
However, by the end of the week, the BTC went on the counterattack, and market analysts started talking about the beginning of a bullish reversal.
Altcoin Market
Ethereum, the main competitor of bitcoin, also started the trading session on Monday with a fall and by the time of writing the material had reached $1,712. At the same time, the quotes of the altcoin soared by 13.9% over the past week.
Crypto experts explain the steady growth in the price of Ethereum in recent days by the restless expectation of the approaching migration of ETH from energy-consuming PoW to a more environmentally friendly Proof-of-Stake algorithm. The long-awaited event is scheduled for September 15th.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin claims that the transition of the network to Proof-of-Stake will increase the popularity of digital assets for everyday payments by reducing the fee to 2 cents. According to the Canadian-Russian programmer, the popularity of crypto payments has fallen after 2018 amid high transaction fees.
At the same time, many members of the crypto community fear that the technical problems associated with the migration of Ethereum to PoS could provoke a loud drop in the second largest virtual asset by capitalization. In turn, the collapse of ETH can put serious pressure on the global cryptocurrency market.
Despite investor concerns, the number of Ethereum wallets holding more than 1,000 ETH soared to a 15-month high last week.
As for cryptocurrencies from the top 10 by capitalization, within the past 24 hours Solana (+11.01%) had the best results, and Cardano (-1.02%) had the worst results.
According to the results of the past week, in the top ten of the strongest digital assets, almost all coins, except for the Binance USD stablecoin, were traded in the green zone. At the same time, the Solana cryptocurrency showed the highest growth (+ 18.19%).
According to CoinGecko, the world's largest virtual asset data aggregator, over the past 24 hours, among the top 100 most capitalized digital assets, Ravencoin (+22.74%) topped the list of leaders, and Terra (-17.29%) took the first place in the decline list.
According to the results of the past week, in the top hundred of the strongest digital assets, all coins, except for the stablecoins USD Coin (USDC) and Tether (USDT), were traded in the green zone. Terra coin showed the best results (+121.29%), while Terra Classic (-13.40%) showed the worst results.
According to CoinGecko, at the time of writing, the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies is $1.1 trillion.
Since last November, when this figure exceeded the $3 trillion mark, it has almost tripled.
Crypto Expert Predictions
The unpredictable behavior of the digital coin market forces analysts to make the most unexpected predictions about its future. The day before, a popular crypto expert from social networks with the nickname filbfilb said that in the near future bitcoin could collapse to $10,000-11,000 amid a high correlation with the NASDAQ Composite stock indicator.
The key indicator of the US stock exchange, in turn, is under strong pressure from the permanent tightening of monetary policy by the Federal Reserve. As for the trader's forecasts for bitcoin for 2023, he is sure that the rally of the first cryptocurrency is "obvious".
At the same time, IncomeSharks experts claim that the crypto winter has come to an end. As the main evidence, project specialists point to large volumes of purchases of bitcoin. Such behavior of participants in the virtual coin market, IncomeSharks analysts are sure, will stimulate the permanent growth of BTC in the future.
At the same time, the head of the SkyBridge Capital investment company, Anthony Scaramucci, believes that the crypto winter will last until the end of the tightening cycle of monetary policy by the Fed. This means that the bitcoin market will not be able to see a confident bullish trend until the beginning of 2023.
An even longer waiting period for the rise of bitcoin was recently announced by a well-known trader in the crypto community under the nickname @kabweh2. He insists that there is a protracted sideways movement ahead of the main digital asset. The investor also drew attention to the fact that recently BTC has been repeating the behavior patterns of the previous cycle. If it continues to move along the already known trajectory, the trader is certain that the market will see the growth of the first cryptocurrency not earlier than the spring of 2023.
Analyst Oriel Ohayon spoke about a more positive scenario for bitcoin. He is confident that the coin will move into the green zone much earlier than the spring of next year, namely in the fall of 2022. So, Ohayon said that soon the first cryptocurrency will break through important key resistance levels, and later within a few weeks it will rise to $28,000.
Another popular crypto expert, Arthur Hayes, co-founder of the BitMEX exchange, recently spoke about the fate of the main competitor of bitcoin. The analyst suggested that the price of Ethereum will skyrocket to $3,000 after its transition from energy-intensive PoW to a greener Proof-of-Stake algorithm.
According to Hayes, the decline in the number of ETH will be a powerful impetus for the increase in quotes. The analyst called the development of the DeFi segment an additional factor in the growth in demand for Ethereum.
