The week began with the market edging downward. Nine of the top 10 coins by market capitalization were lower with the exception rather ironically being Tether (USDT). Bitcoin (BTC) started the week at $5,150 and Ethereum (ETH) at $151.80. USDT had rallied up to $0.9770.
Holidays dominate the horizon this week with Japan out all week, China off for the last 3 days and many countries off on May 1st. So trading volumes might be lower and with that liquidity might also be at a premium. For Monday, action was limited with one brief spike lower taking BTC to $5,060 and ETH to $148.10. But with no follow through the market came right back to where it started the day.
The exception again was USDT which continues to claw its way back towards parity, ending the day at $0.9840. Not too much on the news front but there was a headline suggesting Russia will soon start testing cryptocurrencies for payment methods in four different regions. Definitely, something to keep an eye on.
Technical Analysis
A relatively quiet start to the week with the bigger picture stories essentially unchanged. We take a look at XRP. Much maligned in terms of relative price performance we looked at a longer-term chart, in this case, a daily chart stretching back to mid-2017.
This chart bears a striking resemblance to that of BTC before it broke $5,800 at the end of last year. A swift move down form the highs, a series of lower highs and ranges getting compressed while leaning up against some short term support at $0.2780 and longer term at $0.2424 (the equivalent of BTC at $5,800).
Given XRP has failed to rally with much of the broader market over the past couple of weeks, we wonder If we do get a test of that major support line and see what lurks below.
30 April 2019, David Hannigan. trade.io 30 April 2019, David Hannigan. trade.io
Monday’s biggest winner and loser. Monday’s biggest winner and loser.
Read more at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jpreissler/2019/04/30/cryptocurrencies-edging-slowly-lower/#424aba5f2abf
