Crypto Week at a Glance: Altcoins outperform Bitcoin and Ethereum

Showcasing an equivalent fight among bulls and bears, Altcoins took a dive last week but bounced back with a strong retracement in the last 7 days. The overall market capitalization of crypto assets has nosedived more than 5-7 per cent after a pullback from the lows.

The two important alternative assets, Binance Coin and Stellar, which stood at 4th and 17th rank by market cap, respectively, have shown strength.

Binance Coin (BNB):

Launched in July 2017, Binance is one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges globally and aims to bring cryptocurrency exchanges to the forefront of financial activity globally. The company has grown to be the leading crypto exchange worldwide. BNB is the native token of Binance exchange.

BNB has led the recovery trend among altcoins since the market reset took place. The asset saw a quick recovery, as it retraced from $225 lows to $430 within a week, before witnessing a correction again and was trading at $340 levels. Volumes have shown good resilience, and we haven’t seen much profit booking when prices fell, indicating that the asset is viewed as an investment avenue, and to be held for the long term. Investor confidence in the asset is strong as well. BNB is the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, which currently stands at $53bn.

Market Capitalization and Rank: $53bn (4th)

BNB last week made ‘Higher Tops Higher Bottom’ formation and surged upto $433. However, prices resisted at these levels and retraced almost 26 per cent, and made a weekly low of $319. Technically, in the four-hour timeframe, BNB took multiple support around the crucial level of $322 (50 per cent Fibonacci Retracement Level) and started to move upwards. The uptrend is likely to continue unless the support levels are breached.

Stellar (XLM) :
Stellar is built on an open network that allows money to be moved and stored safely, with the purpose of boosting financial inclusion among participants through expanding the network’s global reach. Over time, Stellar network shifted its focus towards helping financial firms and institutions connect with one another through active participation on the blockchain.

The asset makes it possible to create, send and trade digital representations of all forms of money—dollars, pesos, bitcoin, pretty much anything. It’s specifically designed to make traditional forms of money more useful and accessible. The network launched in 2015, and since then it’s processed more than 450 million operations made by over 4 million individual accounts.

It is unique because every transaction costs just 0.00001 XLM. It has also managed to gain the trust and backing of some global giants. Just a couple of years ago, Stellar and IBM launched World Wire, a tool that allows FIs to transact on the Stellar network using bridge assets such as stablecoins.

Market Capitalization and Rank: $8bn (17th)

XLM, post making the low of $0.274, showed good recovery and surged almost by 72 per cent up to $0.473. The asset then resisted at these levels and prices retraced almost by 34 per cent. Technically, on the four-hourly timeframe, XLM made ‘Tweezer Bottom’ at $0.3 indicating a shift in the trend directions, and started moving upwards making ‘Higher Top Higher Bottom’ formation.

Hence, to conclude, we may see some pullback until these support levels are maintained and for further upside, the asset needs to break and sustain above the resistance level of $0.4.

(Nirmal Ranga is Vice President-Trading at ZebPay. Views are his own)