Weekly Crypto Report: IOTA price surges post halving

GENERAL OVERVIEW

The halving frenzy was in full swing for BTC and cryptocurrencies in general during the past week. The event was in the spotlight even in mainstream investment channels. Past halving events were followed by important price increases over time. This and fundamentals related reasons like decreasing BTC inflation led some to think that the halving could have been a catalyst for a rally of BTC price. That could still very well be the road, but it does look like some more time will be needed.

In the short term, the Bitcoin halving event was actually anticipated by a sharp selloff on May 9th. Scared investors tried to anticipate what some thought could happen post halving and rushed to sell. BTC price dropped to almost 8’000 USD and the actual halving was a non-event from a price perspective.

However, the week was not a complete disappointment for long time holders. Sure, the price did not rise meteorically after the halving. Still, the second part of the week was pretty good as there was a fast rebound from the lows. BTC actually closed the week at 9568 USD,  down just 3.75% w/w.

Technically speaking, the pre-halving price fall was stopped by the 25-periods daily moving average, which acted as strong support having been tested a couple of times on consecutive days. BTC still has to close a full week above the resistance coming from its all-time high of December 2017. It looks well-positioned to do so this week, and that would be a hugely positive signal for the price trend.

Other Top cryptocurrency projects overperformed BTC on aggregate for the major part of the week, despite not showing a good performance overall. During the last couple of days, BTC caught up and basically finished on par with the whole group.

TOP PROJECTS

The halving set the tone for the whole market, which was up before the dump and closed the week in negative territory, albeit on an uptrend on the back of BTC. The median performance in our 17-coins sample was -5.34% w/w, circa 5% lower than the last week.

Just five projects out of seventeen were able to finish the week with a positive result and no one was able to finish with a double-digit gain, even if IOTA (IOTA) come close

NEO (NEO), Chainlink (LINK), Monero (XMR), and Cardano (ADA) were the other positive performers. However, their progress was pretty marginal. At the same time, we have to stress how none of the top projects actually finished the week with a double-digit negative result. Basically, top coins acted like a pack and there was not a very meaningful dispersion of performances.

IOTA posted the best result, finishing the seven days period with a +8.28% w/w and a price of 0.2054 USD. IOTA was added from Binance to its Flexible Savings program during the week and this led to some interest from investors. The coin started the year at 0.16 USD and fell to a minimum of 0.05 USD in March, showing an impressive x4 increase since then.

On the other hand, Litecoin (LTC) has been the worst performer of the week in our sample with a -7.36 w/w negative result. It closed at 43.39 USD and is also one of the worst coins in the last 30 days according to the graph below.

Having a closer look at the graph, we already noted last week how platforms are occupying all the top spots in terms of return, exception made for BTC, and with a significant underperformance by EOS (EOS).

TECHNICALS

Looking at the last seven days’ price range, Monero and Cardano look like the healthiest projects of the group, with NEO giving some signal of weakness despite the overall second-best performance in terms of return.

On a weekly basis, no coin is appearing to be in overbought territory according to RSI, nor in an oversold one. However, we have to mention how BTC is approaching the oversold territory and is, at the same time, showing a pretty good setting in terms of both moving averages’ difference and MACD. A possible prosecution of the uptrend is not out of the discussion for BTC.

At the same time, NEO is showing some signs of weakness even according to our technical indicators on a 30 days period, MACD in particular. Bitcoin and ADA are trading the nearest to their maximum level of the range, while DASH (DASH) appears to be in the weakest position.

We proceed to have a look at the frequency distributions of the coins’ price in terms of satoshis to have a look at the relative performances. IOTA is the only project showing clear strength with respect to BTC and trading now on the right of its relative price frequency distribution.

In a wider period, it becomes even clearer how BTC is basically crushing the competition among top projects, exception made again for the IOTA project.

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DISCLAIMER

The views expressed in this report reflect the analysts’ personal views about the cryptocurrencies subject of the report. These views may change without notice and are subject to market conditions. The report is prepared for information purposes only and by no means constitutes a solicitation to investment or disinvestment. All the data are taken from Binance at 14:00 UTC on the 15th of May 2020. USD and USDT are used interchangeably for illustration purposes. All the presented valuations, indicators, and analyses are subject to errors. The report is for personal use only and should not be republished or redistributed.