The total crypto market cap lost $3.3 billion of its value during the last seven days and now stands at $269.1 billion. The top 10 currencies are all in red for the same time frame with Binance Coin (BNB) and Ripple (XRP) being the worst performers with 6.4 and 3.5 percent of loses respectively. By the time of writing bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $10,306 while ether (ETH) stands at $189. Ripple’s XRP dropped to $0.270.
BTC/USD
Bitcoin moved upward to $10,324 on Sunday, August 18 and closed the week 10.4 percent lower.
The coin started the new trading period with a solid green candle on Monday, August 19, and climbed up to $10,942 losing 5.8 percent of its value.
On the next day, August 20, the most popular cryptocurrency made a slight correction to $10,772 as bulls were running out of steam already. It looked like the short-term bull run from the beginning of the month could not be repeated at this point in time.
Wednesday, August 21 came with a huge loss for the BTC/USD pair as it dropped down to $10,133 threatening to break the psychological level at $10,000.
On Thursday, August 22, the coin remained relatively flat and even though it was temporarily trading below the $10k mark yet bulls managed to hold it.
The green candle, that was formed on August 23, was the first in three sessions and suggested bulls are not willing to raise the white flag yet. Bitcoin closed the workweek at $10,391.
The weekend of August 24-25 started with an almost identical candle to the one created on Friday, but in the opposite direction as BTC erased its gains from the previous day and closed at $10,149. It stayed flat on Sunday, August 25 and registered no price changes. BTC/USD ended the week at $10,140 with 1.7 percent of decline.
ETH/USD
The Ethereum Project token ETH gained 4.8 percent on Sunday, August 18, and closed at $194. It was 9.8 percent down for that seven-day period.
The ether started the new trading period with a third consecutive green candle on the daily chart on Monday, August 19 and climbed up to $202. It was already trading above the important price level of $200 after successfully escaping the $180-$190 zone.
On Tuesday, August 20, the ETH/USD pair started falling down and first moved down to $196 loosing 3 percent.
On the next day, Wednesday, August 21 it dropped even further and closed the trading session at $187. The coin tested the $180 support once more during intraday but bulls managed to hold the level.
The trading session on Thursday, August 22 saw bears attempting yet another attack on the $180 level as the ether was trading as low as $183 during intraday. Following the general trend of the crypto market for the day, however, the ETH/USD pair moved up to $190 and closed with a green candle.
The last day of the workweek came with a second consecutive winning session and the Ethereum token moved up to $194. It almost broke above the downtrend line at $197 during the session.
On Saturday, August 24, we saw a retreat to $190, which was followed by another drop into the $190-$180 zone on August 25, this time to $186. The ETH/USD pair closed the seven-day period 4 percent lower.
XRP/USD
The Ripple company token XRP moved up to $0.282 on Sunday, August 18, closing the seven-day period 6 percent lower. Bulls were able to push price all the way up to $0.292, still they were rejected and brought back down to the levels below $0.285.
On Monday, August 19, the coin experienced a highly volatile session during which it was trading in the $0.29-$0.274 zone, just to close flat at $0.282.
The next two sessions on August 20 and 21 found the XRP dropping down first to $0.273 on Tuesday and then to $0.265 in the middle of the week. For a brief period of time, the XRP/USD pair was trading below the $0.26 support level. The last time it closed below that level was in September 2018.
After finding short-term support around the mentioned level, the “ripple” climbed up to $0.27 on Thursday, August 22 and extended gains to $0.277 on Friday, August 23.
It stared the weekend trading sessions with a drop to $0.272 on August 24, followed by another red candle, to $0.269 on Sunday. It ended the week with a 5 percent loss.
On August 20, Ripple announced a new partnership with the money transfer service Xendpay. The company will join the RippleNet in order to expand its coverage to new regions. As per the official Ripple company post, the new deal will help opening new payment corridors for remittance transfers to Bangladesh, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Additionally, it will open real-time payment rails to Thailand.
Altcoin of the Week
Our Altcoin of the week is Ethereum Classic (ETC). The “original” Ethereum registered the stunning 29.2 percent of price increase for the last seven days and peaked at $7.58 on Thursday, August 22.
The coin, which was one of the best performing crypto assets in 2018 is slowly regaining its position in the Top 100 ranking. It currently stands at #19 as per CoinGecko, with a market cap of approximately $813 million. Ethereum Classic is in a downtrend since the 51 percent attack it suffered on January 7 this year.
The main reason for the recent good performance is the upcoming Atlantis fork, which aims to improve the project’s security features. It will happen at block 8,772,000 or sometime around September 13.
What’s more, the Ethereum Classic Labs will be partnering with the UK-based digital assets investment group North Block Capital in launching and managing token sales across the Asia region.
In the early hours of August 26, the ETC is at $7.20. The ETC/BTC pair is trading at $0.00069 on the Binance daily chart.
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