People Are Powering Crypto Markets on the Promise of Decentralization
• Bitcoin (BTC, Tech/Adoption Grade “A-”) charged forward this week to new all-time highs past $48,000. Today, it’s trading around $47,000.
• Ethereum (ETH, Tech/Adoption Grade “A-”) has its sights set on the important psychological level of $2,000 after climbing to $1,800.
• Aave (AAVE, Unrated) cooled down a bit with just a 9% gain this week. After its explosive 300% run this month, a breather’s not unexpected.
The crypto market rally is on pause today after a fantastic week all around. While Bitcoin and most of the largest cryptocurrencies continued climbing to new highs, many altcoins were able to outpace them.
Algorand (ALGO, Unrated), a blockchain with the mission of developing a borderless economy with scalable and secure transactions, shot up 142% this week.
Cosmos (ATOM, Tech/Adoption Grade “C”), a cryptocurrency platform looking to connect public blockchains without the need for a centralized exchange, increased over 100% as well.
Of course, many other altcoins had explosive gains this week, and all of these recent winners point to the validation of “AltSeason,” which we officially called just a short time ago.
As AltSeason progresses, we’ll continue to see promising projects emerge, generate hype and establish foundations for massive gains, if not necessarily real-world applications.
Index Roundup
The Weiss 50 Crypto Index (W50) soared 45.45% this week, as the crypto market continues its massive rally to new all-time highs.
The Weiss 50 Ex-BTC Index (W50X) climbed 38.62%, as Bitcoin slightly outpaced the top 50 coins.
Breaking down this week’s performance by market capitalization, we see that smaller and mid-sized altcoins outperformed their larger counterparts.
Cryptocurrencies of all sizes did well this week, and their overall performance was still extremely positive.
Still, the large-caps lagged behind the rest of the market, as the Weiss Large-Cap Crypto Index (WLC) gained 43.65%.
Mid-cap cryptocurrencies performed the best this week, as the Weiss Mid-Cap Crypto Index (WMC) rocketed up 67.55%.
The small-caps didn’t quite match the mid-cap rally, but they still managed to outperform the largest cryptocurrencies. The Weiss Small-Cap Crypto Index (WSC) increased 61.29%.
Notable News, Notes and Tweets
• Mastercard (NYSE: MA) will start allowing their vendors to accept payments in cryptocurrencies starting this year.
• Wall Street banks are facing heavier pressure to start adopting Bitcoin.
• Elon Musk tweeted that he bought Dogecoin so his son could be a “toddler hodler.”
What’s Next
We’re still in the early stages of altcoin season, and we should continue to see outperformance from altcoins in the near term. This recent bull market is just getting started, and the entire space will continue to rally.
Corrections are inescapable, but increasing adoption and strong macroeconomic fundamentals will continue driving crypto’s viability moving forward.
It’s very positive news that Bitcoin’s price continues increasing alongside the altcoins because they’re usually bought using the King of Crypto as a pair.
Bitcoin is extremely hot, and we’ll continue to see sentiment improve as other massive companies like Tesla Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA) recognize the advantages of adding Bitcoin to their balance sheets.
After the GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) debacle and the shutdown of buying on exchanges, DeFi (that’s short for “decentralized finance”) assets will continue to generate headlines and interest; it’s a positive feedback loop, because powerful institutions can’t control the flow of buying and selling on decentralized platforms, and the more people know about them, the more people use them ...
The future of DeFi is exciting, and it’s already begun supercharging rallies throughout the rest of the crypto market.
Best,
Sam
