The week opens with an upward movement in Bitcoin (BTC) after a sizzling weekend, the one that closed the first month of 2021. Not so much for the top two, Bitcoin and Ethereum, which barely moved at all, but for XRP which came roaring back thanks to the attention of the now well-known Reddit group of traders WallStreetBets.
The manoeuvres of WallStreetBets
WallStreetBets first came to prominence last week with the GameStop events, and then shifted its focus to cryptocurrencies. After Dogecoin, the time has come for XRP.
From Friday’s levels, the price of the token is now soaring to within a hair’s breadth of 70 cents, the highest level since last November, and has jumped 160% in 48 hours.
This allows Ripple to regain third place in the rankings, overtaking Polkadot (DOT) again after two weeks.
It doesn’t end there. A GameStop-style bullish attack is expected to begin at 14:30 CET, although from what has been happening in the last few hours, many have wanted to anticipate this tactical move.
Over the past two days, Ripple’s volumes have exceeded those of Bitcoin.
The WallStreetBets group has also shifted its attention to the commodities market in recent hours, targeting silver prices. From the opening tonight, silver has jumped 10%.
For silver, this is the largest deviation since December 1st, 2014, a period that saw strong swings in precious metals, at a sensitive time in history, when there was the crisis in Greece and tensions between Russia and Ukraine. Today there is this strong swing that takes the value to $30, the highest level since August 2020.
Also on pNetwork (PNT) last night there was a bullish attack, coordinated on Binance (not coming from WallStreetBets) that took it to $6, while on the other exchanges it remained around $1.10.
It has currently stabilized around the dollar
January 2021 crypto performance
Despite the tensions of the last few days, the month of January closes in positive territory for over 90% of the top 100 cryptocurrencies. Triple-digit rises were recorded in particular for the tokens of the decentralized finance ecosystem.
The top 10 rises for the month include tokens from Curve Dao (CRV), 1Inch, Uniswap (UNI), Aave and SushiSwap (SUSHI). These include Dogecoin (DOGE), which has risen over 550% since opening at the beginning of the year for the reason given above.
Among the few negative balances, Monero (XMR) stands out. The leading crypto in terms of privacy has slipped by about 5%, although the price above $140 remains at its highest level in two years.
Market cap, dominance and DeFi
The market cap consolidates above $1 trillion, with Bitcoin’s dominance plummeting to 62%, its lowest level since late November. Ethereum also lost ground, slipping 15%, while Ripple redeemed itself by doubling its market share from last week’s lows to above 2.1%.
DeFi yesterday saw it set a new all-time high at $27.7 billion. Bitcoin locked in decentralized finance projects continues to grow. In the last few hours, they have risen to 45,300 pieces.
Maker remains the most used project with $4.6 billion, followed by Aave and Compound. The competition for third place between Compound and Uniswap remains open. Uniswap, the DEX par excellence, ended January with $30 billion in trades, an all-time record for a decentralized exchange.
Bitcoin (BTC) up again thanks to Elon Musk
After soaking up Friday’s euphoria thanks to Elon Musk’s tweet, which caused the price to leap by over $5,000 in just a few hours, reaching close to $39,000 after more than two weeks, the week begins again with another statement from the CEO of Tesla in sympathy with the queen of cryptocurrencies.
Today’s rise brings Bitcoin’s price back above $34,500. Prices seem to have finally broken out of the range that had characterized most of the second half of January, but the final confirmation of the break of $33,000 will come with prices above this level for the next 48 hours.
Ethereum (ETH), weakness prevails
Ethereum’s week begins with weakness, down about 2%, a move that is more technical than structural. In fact, Ether prices remain solidly above $1,250. For 19 days, Ethereum prices have remained above $1,000, a new record for the queen of altcoins.
