The No. 2 cryptocurrency holds the line for altcoins, as the memecoin of the day, Dogecoin (DOGE, Tech/Adoption Grade “C+”), trends on Twitter, Inc. (NYSE: TWTR).
• Ethereum (ETH, Tech/Adoption Grade “A-”) has held its 21-day moving average and will look to push off of that level today.
• Dogecoin has become an internet sensation, turning quite a few jokesters into millionaires in the process.
• Solana (SOL) has skyrocketed so far this year and outperformed the market over the weekend.
Despite the rough weekend, Ethereum has held up better than Bitcoin (BTC, Tech/Adoption Grade “A-”) after it fell from highs around $2,500 to current levels near $2,150, a correction of roughly 15%.
Ethereum has held above its 21-day moving average, a level it bounced off yesterday. ETH bulls will look to hold that metric and get back above $2,200; if successful, they’ll look to push it to new highs.
Ethereum’s performance this week is doing a lot to keep up the narrative of a healthy and strong altcoin season.
Here’s ETH in U.S. dollar terms via Coinbase:
Dogecoin has had a wild ride so far in 2021, but nothing could have prepared us for the crazy price action over the last two weeks.
DOGE started off this run at just under 6 cents on April 7 before peaking at about 47 cents on April 16, a gain of 733%. It’s retraced to about 36 cents today. But that still represents a gain of more than 400% in just these last two weeks.
Today, April 20, has been unofficially declared Dogecoin day, hyped up for Dogecoin traders to push the digital currency to 69 cents in homage to Elon Musk.
(As crazy as that last sentence reads, it’s a real thing. What a time to be alive.)
Eventually, though, this bubble will pop and violently. So, buyers … beware.
Here’s DOGE in U.S. dollar terms via Binance:
One asset we’ve yet to cover, Solana, has been having one heck of a year. More importantly, it posted a very uncorrelated performance on Sunday; when Bitcoin was crashing, SOL spiked up 30%.
Solana is currently up 140% since its local low on March 25; 140% in 27 days is nothing to scoff at. As if that isn’t impressive enough, SOL is up 1,800% year to date.
Talk about a red-hot altcoin.
Here’s SOL in U.S. dollar terms via Binance:
Notable News, Notes and Tweets
- A former chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has joined the board of directors at crypto wealth management firm BlockFi.
- And a former acting comptroller of the currency of the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is going to be the new CEO of crypto exchange Binance.US.
- Finally, the Biden administration is developing plans to regulate Bitcoin and crypto.
What’s Next
Those were some interesting developments in cryptocurrency adoption for today’s Notable News, Notes and Tweets section. It looks like the U.S. and other countries might be on the verge of attempting to regulate the largest unregulated market in the world.
Regulating crypto is an interesting concept, a direct challenge to the ethos that gave rise to this asset class. Bitcoin was literally developed as a hedge against terrible monetary policy, led by the Federal Reserve, that first crashed the markets in 2008-09 and then layered on more of the same terrible monetary policy as a curative.
Today is a good example of just how crazy this market is, as #doge420 and #dogecoin420 are both currently trending on Twitter as people try to push Dogecoin to 69 cents on April 20, which shall henceforth be known as “Dogecoin Day.”
If the whole GameStop/meme stonk fiasco gave traditional market regulators a headache, I wonder how they’ll feel attempting to control this decentralized ecosystem.
While the Biden administration searches for a plan, we’ll continue to follow this wild altcoin season. Altseason appears to be holding up strongly, evidenced by Ethereum’s resilience amid a broader correction.
Ideally, attention and capital will shift away from the most famous memecoin, DOGE, in favor of worthy alternatives, such as DeFi projects with actual value.
Stay tuned for updates on this developing situation.
Best,
Alex
