The largest South Korean exchange Bithumb announced on August 21 the addition of the privacy-focused altcoin, monero (XMR). The exchange, which commands more than $900 million in volume daily, plans to open up monero deposits on August 23.
Koreans have been pushing a lot of volume into cryptocurrency markets recently. The pump of Bitcoin Cash over the weekend of August 19 was driven mainly by exchanges in South Korea. Ether is also a popular altcoin to trade, with a substantial portion of the volume coming from Bithumb and Coinone, accounting for more than 25 percent of the total volume.
Now monero, a relatively low volume cryptocurrency, will enjoy greater interest and points to a higher price for XMR-USD over the medium term. Currently, more than 30 percent of the volume originates from Poloniex.
Bithumb is encouraging monero trading by running a promotion; between August 23 and August 25, those who deposit XMR at their Bithumb account will receive an extra one percent on top. Furthermore, the exchange is also running a trading competition, whereby the top 50 biggest traders in terms of trading amounts will be given a prize of up to 100 XMR (worth over $7,800 at the time of writing).
The anticipation of monero being opened up to such a market that is enthusiastic about crypto has propelled the altcoin to fresh all-time highs. The market capitalization of Monero broke above the $1 billion mark for the first time on August 21, as XMR-USD breached the $60 and $70 handles with ease, currently trading at $78.73 on the Kraken exchange.
The weekly price action for XMR-USD is shown below. As noted in our Weekly Cryptocurrency Market Outlook August 15, we stated that a move above the high at $53.43 would lead to further gains. The market invalidated the fractal resistance at $53.43 (the fractal was forming, but invalidated last week when monero moved above $53.43) and the weekly candlestick closed at $55.29.
On August 21, the price of monero jumped from the open at $55.41 to fresh highs above $80 as Bithumb’s announcement permeated the cybersphere. Notice that this week, we see the conversion line (blue) has moved higher, suggesting the market will also continue in the upward direction and offers support at $51.33. Also, we should see a weekly close above the previous all-time high and fractal resistance at $61.70 by August 28, which will give even stronger bullish confirmation.
XMR-BTC is also looking strong, with a break above the fractal resistance at 0.0198 occurring on August 21. We should see XMR-BTC target the fractal at 0.02526, the high from May 2017. Also, notice that a fractal support looks to form by August 28 at 0.01056, which provides a further bullish indication.
While XMR has a low profile on international exchanges, it is one of the most promising cryptocurrency projects. The addition of the altcoin to South Korean exchange Bithumb means it will join other heavyweights such as Dash and Litecoin. It is also a good sign for improving the liquidity of monero markets as well as the further adoption of the altcoin in the future. If the addition is popular amongst South Korean traders and investors, we could see the price of monero propelled even higher by the end of August.
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