TL;DR
- A deeper look into Ethereum charts ahead of the L2 token drops
- Bitcoin quiet ahead of a busy news week
- Panama just about adopts crypto
Ethereum has been an important topic of late with the merge on the horizon and now the kickstart to L2 summer after Optimistic announced the upcoming drop of its OP token.
We love altcoins and other Layer-1s such as Solana (SOL), Terra (LUNA), and Avalanche (AVAX) but Ethereum is the king of altcoins. It’s moves often signal the start of a loosely defined altcoin season. So keeping an eye on Ethereum is keeping an eye on all your favorite altcoins.
Some people believe the merge can be the next major catalyst in crypto and if true, the whole cryptoverse will benefit when it kicks off.
So it remains important to keep an eye on the altcoin king and that’s exactly what we’ll do today.
If it begins to run, maybe we’ll begin to see the 20-30% daily pumps we saw in 2021. Fingers crossed.
A deep look into Ethereum charts ahead of L2 token drops.
A couple of charts that we’re keeping a close eye on are the ETH/BTC and Ethereum Dominance ETH.D. The daily chart for ETH/BTC appears to be forming a wedge pattern after a strong couple of weeks turned into consolidation. It’s a pattern that looks similar to the previous three breakouts in ETH over BTC highlighted with purple arrows below. L2 are in the process of releasing tokens which bodes well for ETH, as Ethereum and the L2 family share each other’s network effects. Many times, patterns in the market work in threes, so the final playout could be the final iteration. Hopefully, ETH breaks to the topside after that. Chart below.
Source: Trading View
The Ethereum dominance 4H chart ETH.D that notes the overall percentage of ETH value held over the entire crypto market has begun to show signs of uptrending. I’d be hesitant to call it a true uptrend until the trendline is successfully tested in three strong iterations. At the moment there’s only been two. Chart below.
Despite the emergence of a number of L1 competitors, ETH.D continues a range that began in June 2021. Since May 2021 Ethereum hasn’t held above 20.45% dominance for long. It could be a percentage tested in the coming months, lining up with the L2 emergence and the much anticipated merge.
Market update 🌍
Bitcoin’s rebounded off the long-term upward trendline (green) from on our charts after a turbulent midweek. A smaller sized bullish divergence has appeared in the daily charts as the RSI continued uptrending versus a slight downtrend in price. Considered a reversal signal, it’s appearance on the trendline holds promise for BTC to hold above those levels. Ideally, we’d prefer RSI to continue climbing or holding steady before an eventual breakout of the downtrend in red. Prices will tend to consolidate at these points for a few days before the trend is broken. Things in generally are looking good but major news events could change things quickly.
Source: Trading View
| US markets close | Gain |
| S&P 500 | -0.63% |
| Nasdaq | +0.31% |
| Dow | -0.11% |
| VIX | +2.27% |
| Protocol (Coin) | Price ($) | Gain (%) |
| Lido DAO (LDO) | 3.53 | +8 |
| ApeCoin (APE) | 21.21 | +7 |
| PancakeSwap (CAKE) | 7.97 | +6 |
| Skale (SKL) | 018 | +17.5 |
| Vela (VLX) | 0.16 | +17 |
| NuCypher (NU) | 0.37 | +11 |
| Rally (RLY) | 0.16 | +11 |
| Railgun (RAIL) | 3.28 | +11 |
| Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index | 23 Extreme Fear |
| “Crypto” Google Trends | 46 |
| “Bitcoin” Google Trends | 43 |
Newswatch 📰
Tech Sector earnings hits and misses. While the crypto market and tech sector remain highly correlated we find it important to follow important aspects. Apple (AAPL) beat earnings and grew 9% year over year but shares fell 4% after CFO Luca Maestri noted supply challenges during the conference call. On the other hand, Amazon failed to meet expectations and slide -8%.
SCARED ME BRO! OK SOUNDS GOOD!
The other big 6 Q1 earnings:
Tesla (TSLA) beat
Google (GOOG) missed
Microsoft (MSFT) beat
Meta (FB) beat
Almost legal tender. The constitution of Panama prohibits legalizing crypto as legal tender but the Country has passed a bill for its use in purchasing goods and services with a zero capital gains tax.
Telegram adds crypto payments. The foundation behind messaging app Telegram, has added crypto payments functionality for bitcoin and toncoin (TON) to its 550 million users.
Need a bitcoin-backed loan for a bank? The 4th largest bank in the US, Goldman Sachs offers its first bitcoin-backed loan. This comes after the banking giant has offered over-the-counter bitcoin transactions.
On-chain ⛓
Frax coming to Terra. Stablecoin provider Frax Finance has announced its partnership with Retrograde to bring the FRAX stablecoin to the Terra (LUNA) ecosystem.
On-chain Tidbits:
- Nansen publishes its first ever quarterly report on Celo Organization.
- Article explaining the future Astro (ASTRO) wars.
NFT & metaverse update 🐵
Real estate ape. One of the largest real estate companies in China, Greenland Group announces the purchase of BAYC 8302 for 140 ETH. It’s unclear why a real estate company purchased an Ape but it might be used as an advertising tool.
BAYC’s Otherside land grab. Otherdeed NFTs in the BAYC ecosystem will be available to mint for the wallets that KYC for a price of 305 ApeCoins (APE) with a max of two per wallet. There are a total of 55k Otherdeed NFTs for sale.
Notable Mints:
| Project | Type | Mint price | Date of mint | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blvck Genesis | PFP | 0.2 E | April 29 | 10:15 am EST |
| Lo-FI Originals | PFP | 0.09 E | April 29 | 2:00 pm EST |
Banter’s take
It feels like another calm before the storm. The news cycle dies down, prices begin to range and
people’s focus turns to other sectors such as NFTs. We expect things to pick up next week with the FOMC meetings and following announcements. Since the market has already digested the 50 basis rate hikes, who knows, maybe we’ll get some good surprises for once.
Enjoy your weekend fam!
Gabri
