Once again, the weekend saw another record-low trend in trading volumes: for the queens Bitcoin and Ethereum, in fact, the value of trades accumulated between Saturday and Sunday were the lowest in the last quarter, both against USD and in general.
To find a week with a total of real trades on the major exchanges like those of the last week, one has to go back to the end of 2019.
With these conditions comes an increased risk that one or more well-capitalized traders could easily influence price movement. And in all likelihood that is what may have happened between yesterday afternoon and evening.
In just a few hours, Bitcoin and Ethereum prices rose more than 5%. For the entire week, only 3 times did the swings manage to move prices up or down, with deviations above 1% and still remaining below 2%.
The shakeout put an upward swing that accompanied prices above Monday’s opening price causing Bitcoin and Ethereum to close positive in their weekly performance, driving much of the major capitalization tokens.
Notable among the suffering tokens are alternative blockchains struggling to keep up despite slow and low volatility in recent weeks.
Among the worst-performing blue chips are Polkadot (DOT) and Solana (SOL) tokens, which lose more than 5% weekly. They are followed by XRP (XRP) and Cardano (ADA), both slipping more than 2%, with the latter halving its value in two months and touching US$0.330, the lowest levels since January 2021.
Summary
Performance of Bitcoin’s value
The rise in intraday volatility timidly affects monthly volatility by moving a few decimals away from the bottom touched last week, the lowest levels in two years.
The hike in the second half of the day yesterday, Sunday, 23 October, registered an increase of 366 points/dollar, by number the best performance in 20 days.
Despite this, the price of Bitcoin has not broken out of the trading range that has been caging price fluctuations since early October.
This reason does not change the operational approach of the past few days and is repeatedly indicated in previous update articles on these pages.
Ethereum (ETH) price trend
It is the same for Ethereum (ETH) that while registering the best daily performance of the last month (+3.8% = 50 points/dollar) its price briefly manages to break above the short-term resistance of 1,350 USD, an operational level to follow indicated in the last update on Friday.
At the moment for ETH, yesterday’s increase in intraday volatility has not impacted monthly volatility, which remains at its lowest levels since May 2021. This detail indicates how the current phase is characterized by price movements stifled within a small price range.
The technical picture remains unchanged, but one must continue to remain vigilant. Yesterday’s movement may have been just a test.
