Markets Update: Consolidation Continues as Traders Wait for a Breakout

On Sunday, Jan. 27, a vast majority of cryptocurrency markets have seen sideways consolidation as prices have been following a narrow range for over a week. A few major digital asset markets have seen decent gains this week, but most crypto prices remain tight as traders await a strong breakout.

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That Narrow Range

At the time of publication, the entire cryptocurrency economy is valued at $118.6 billion. Since our last markets update, the entire market cap has shaved a few billion and daily trade volume worldwide has decreased a hair. This Sunday’s trade volume for all 2,000+ digital assets is around $16.4 billion. The leading cryptocurrency by market capitalization, bitcoin core (BTC), is currently trading for $3,581. BTC’s market cap captures $62.6 billion right now and global trade volume is roughly $5.5 billion. Ripple (XRP) holds the second position as each token is being swapped for $0.30 and the coin has a market valuation of $12.7 billion – officially, at least.

Below ripple is ethereum (ETH), which is trading for $113 per coin and has a $11.8 billion market cap. Out of the top five market caps, ETH’s 4% weekly loss is the deepest cut of them all. Lastly eos (EOS) is trading for $2.39 per coin and holds the fifth largest market valuation this weekend. One notable mention is the cryptocurrency tron, which has jumped to seventh position and gained more than 25% over the last seven days.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Market Action

Moving on to bitcoin cash (BCH) markets and the currency is being traded for $123 at the time of writing. BCH markets are down 2.8% today and have an overall market valuation of around $2.17 billion. The top exchanges this Sunday swapping the most bitcoin cash are Lbank, P2pb2b, Fcoin, Hitbtc, and Binance. Ethereum trades are dominating BCH swaps today as ETH captures 53% of all trades over the last 24 hours. This is followed by USDT (24.8%), BTC (12.2%), KRW (3.5%), and USD (3.4%) with JPY and EUR trailing not too far behind. It’s worth noting the South Korean won has captured a lot more BCH volume in recent days. Bitcoin cash is the eighth most traded coin today by volume below XRP, and just above ZEC.

BCH/USD Technical Indicators

Looking at the BCH/USD charts on Bitstamp, particularly the four-hour and daily, shows BCH bulls continue to fail at breaking overhead resistance. At the moment, RSI levels are much closer to oversold conditions (-34.61) and MACd is meandering downward showing a similar reading. Looking at the two Simple Moving Averages (SMA) indicate the same sentiment as the long-term 200 SMA is still well above the short-term 100 SMA. This says the path toward the least resistance is still favoring the bears.

Moving on, we can see small dumps breaking light foundations and Bollinger Bands are extremely coiled indicating a strong move will take place soon. In terms of an upward breakout scenario, BCH bulls need to push past overhead resistance around $175. Currently, order books show there is heavy resistance between the current vantage point and $150. On the backside, there’s a bunch of support up to the $110 range, and then from there, things begin to lighten.

Monotonous Markets Usually Mean Something Will Happen Soon

For traders, the tedium and lack of volatility continue. Both ETH and BTC shorts positions on Bitfinex and Bitmex are not particularly high this weekend and uncertainty is still in the air. On Jan. 25, during an interview, Fundstrat founder Tom Lee touched on his previous year-long prediction of BTC charging to $25K by the end of 2018.

Lee says it was a “huge disappointment” that it didn’t come to fruition and made note of the initial coin offering (ICO) space collapsing. The Fundstrat executive still wholeheartedly believes his $25K forecast was “actually a fair value for bitcoin.” For now, that prediction seems very far off for the many depressed traders missing the days when everything was bullish.

Where do you see the price of BCH, BTC and other coins heading from here? Let us know in the comments below.

Disclaimer: Price articles and markets updates are intended for informational purposes only and should not to be considered as trading advice. Neither Bitcoin.com nor the author is responsible for any losses or gains, as the ultimate decision to conduct a trade is made by the reader. Always remember that only those in possession of the private keys are in control of the “money.”

Images via Shutterstock, Trading View, Bitstamp, Coinlib.io, and Satoshi Pulse.

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