Over the weekend that has just ended, the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum in USD did not experience any shocks.
However, this does not mean that it was flat.
Summary
Bitcoin and Ethereum: the USD price trend over the weekend
At the beginning of 2023, the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum often rose over the weekends.
In many cases this dynamic has been influenced by the traditional markets, since BTC and ETH are considered risk-on assets and therefore follow the trend of other risk-on assets.
The thing is that Bitcoin and Ethereum are not suffering at this time, but they are suffering as a reflection of when fears spread in traditional markets that trigger a more or less large flight from risk-on assets.
Since traditional markets are closed during the weekend, this flight from risk-on assets is occurring almost exclusively during business days, which is when traditional exchanges are open. In this way over the weekend the crypto markets relax, if not actually rebound.
However, over the weekend that just ended there was no rebound.
Taking the Nasdaq 100 index as a reference, since the US market is the one most likely to influence crypto ones at this time, during the past week there was a slight rebound, which probably also positively affected the crypto markets.
So since there was no flight from risk during the week, there was no rebound over the weekend in the crypto markets.
The trend during the last week
The last week opened with Bitcoin’s price around $28,000, and Ethereum’s price below $1,800.
For Bitcoin, it was a week of lateralization around that threshold, albeit with a hike below $27,000 on Wednesday, and two attempts to approach $29,000, on Wednesday and Thursday.
In other words, it was a relatively quiet week except for the middle two days.
Ethereum’s performance was very similar, although its price made no attempt to approach $1,900, and never fell below $1,700.
The only real difference is that ETH’s volatility has been slightly lower than that of BTC, perhaps because at this time it is BTC’s price that is moving the most, affecting other crypto assets, and not vice versa.
The weekend was no exception, although volatility was reduced.
For Bitcoin, the swing was between $27,200 and $28,200, which is a very compressed range, while for Ethereum it was between $1,720 and $1,800.
So even during the week that has just ended it was the traditional markets that moved the crypto markets the most, whereas over the weekend with the exchanges closed, they saw their volatility reduce.
Bitcoin’s price in USD over the long term
It certainly turns out to be more interesting to examine Bitcoin’s price trend over the long term.
In fact, the current price level of about $28,000 is in line with, or slightly below, the price level held for a few weeks in late May 2022, i.e., after the implosion of the Terra/Luna ecosystem but before the Celsius bankruptcy.
It is worth noting that the May 2022 implosion of Terra was an event internal to the crypto markets, while the Celsius failure in June involved a company operating within the regulated framework of traditional finance, though providing crypto services.
This is also true of FTX, the crypto exchange that failed in November, because it too was a company operating within the traditional financial regulatory framework.
To be more accurate, the Terra/Luna project was a crypto project that had the classic decentralization features that all typical crypto projects should have.
Celsius and FTX, on the other hand, were normal centralized companies, completely devoid of decentralized aspects, and therefore external to the crypto world. They simply provided crypto services but remained traditional companies.
So it may be no coincidence that the early 2023 rebound brought Bitcoin’s price back to levels earlier than those touched after the Celsius and FTX bankruptcy, but not to those before Terra’s implosion.
In other words, it has recovered losses due to collapses generated outside the crypto world, but not yet those due to collapses within the industry.
Added to this is the fact that before the start of the latest big bull run in December 2020, Bitcoin’s price was hovering at a level of about $10,000, or just over a third of what it is today. So the early 2023 rebound should for all intents and purposes be considered growth in the long run, net of the speculative bubble that inflated in 2021 and burst in 2022.
Should that growth continue, the two key levels to keep an eye on right now are the $29,000-$30,000 held in late May 2022 between the Terra/Luna implosion and the Celsius bankruptcy, and the $35,000-$36,000 it had in early May just before the implosion of Terra.
The price of Ethereum in USD over the long term
Ethereum’s price trend over the past 12 months is similar to that of Bitcoin, but with some differences.
The most significant difference is that the price of ETH in 2023 has not yet recovered all the losses accumulated since Terra’s implosion.
In fact, at the end of May 2022, while Bitcoin’s price was hovering around $29,000-$30,000, Ethereum’s price was around $2,000, which is still a value never approached in 2023.
Indeed, in August last year, after a brief descent below $1,000, the price of ETH had returned to almost $2,000, thanks to a major rebound in anticipation of the transition to Proof-of-Stake.
However, after this transition, which occurred in September, Ethereum’s price stopped outperforming that of Bitcoin, so much so that its current price is in line with the price just prior to the Merge.
Basically, the momentum due to the anticipation of the Merge has worn off, and enthusiasm has died down somewhat, as there was perhaps too much optimism about the possible positive impact of the Merge on the Ethereum ecosystem.
Indeed, fears began to circulate in early 2023 about whether ETH could be considered a security, given that it is based on Proof-of-Stake. These fears have probably prevented Ethereum’s price from rebounding as much as Bitcoin.
In fact, since the beginning of the year, BTC has rallied +67%, while ETH “only” +46%.
So if Ethereum had lost less than Bitcoin in 2022, probably due to the anticipation of the Merge, it is gaining less in 2023, due in part to fears regarding the same role ETH has within the financial markets.
