The crypto market has slowed down in the past week, with sentiment tilting into fear as BTC fails to crack $10k, and DeFi protocol bZx loses a huge load of ETH in a sophisticated robbery.

But the bigger picture remains bullish: Bitcoin is still holding above support at $9,600, Ether hasn’t dropped on news of the exploit, and several smaller altcoins are still pushing upwards.

Here, you will learn about the performance of 4 top cryptocurrencies and events that may have driven their prices.

Bitcoin (BTC)

In the past week, BTC found support at $9600 but was unable to crack the $10k mark. BTC witnessed a turbulent week after dropping by a total of 5.5% to bring the cryptocurrency back beneath $10,000.

Each time the price settled around the $10k level, it bounced back down as sellers stepped into the market. The last sell-off on February 19 was the biggest yet, with prices falling $800 to reach $9,300, an 8% drop within 30 minutes.

Prior to the price crash, two major exchanges (Binance and Coinbase) went on unscheduled maintenance. Moreover, Whale Alert recorded a high activity of whales participating in a variety of massive transactions, which is thought to have manipulated the market.

But despite this strong resistance at $10k, there are still strong technical reasons to be bullish: On the daily chart, the 200 and 50-day moving averages have formed a Golden Cross, which typically portends a bullish trend.

Moreover, the enduring BTC support at $9,600 suggests price has found a strong foothold at this level. BTC is currently trading at $9877.

In the coming weeks, if the BTC price stays above $9,600, we can expect the bulls to make another attempt to take the $10k mark.

Ethereum (ETH)

ETH managed to rise above the previous $277 resistance but stalled at $287. After reversing, it went on to drop by a total of 3% this week as it fell into support at $256 and is currently at $271.15.

The key event that drove this price curve was when crafty traders caused an uproar last week by exploiting a flash loan loophole in the bZx protocol to make off with $360,000 ETH.

This led critics to suggest that DeFi protocols are insecure, and not decentralized because trades can simply be rolled back with the use of an administrator master key.

DeFi bulls, on the other hand, argue that exposing vulnerabilities in the protocols is a positive step, and suggest the incident is just a speed hump on the road to a mature crypto market ecosystem.

Chainlink (LINK)

News of the exploits on the Ethereum network has benefitted LINK in the past week.

The cryptocurrency platform will now be collaborating with bzX to improve the security of its Fulcrum platform and prevent similar attacks to the one on ETH in the future.

This positive news is reflected in an ongoing bullish trend, and Chainlink is now up 165% since the start of this year, making it one of the best-performing cryptocurrency of 2020.

On the chart, the Link’s crypto market is currently consolidating at the $4.293 mark. If the price can push through this level, LINK will be trading in the new territory next week.

Ripple (XRP)

On February 15, after peaking at $0.312, the XRP/USD pair moved up to $0.307, right above the 78.60% level.

Bulls were still not able to take over during that period, and XRP lost even more ground on February 16, finally plummeting to $0.305. The intraday price spikes, however, suggested a possible breakout, which was later confirmed by increasing trading volumes on February 17. XRP gained 1% of the value on the same day before stopping at $0.308. It also marked the end of the seven days with a two per cent loss.

On February 18, XRP/USD gained 6.8 percent and smashed through $0.31 and $0.32 lines finding its current level at $0.328, right above the 61.80 per cent Fibonacci. Trading volumes doubled and surpassed $900 million.

On February 19, XRP was highly volatile as it made a huge movement upwards and touched $0.355 during the intraday session to end the day at $0.329. Trading volumes reached $1.3 billion, which is its highest point since Dec. 25 last year.

XRP moved up to $0.3378 on February 20 and was looking to break above last registered high at $0.34 by the end of the trading week. The cryptocurrency is currently trading at $0.281.

Popular crypto commentator CJ recently remarked on twitter that XRP’s chart setup suggests a strong breakout to the upside may soon occur.

In his chart, he depicted the fact that XRP has been building a falling wedge pattern over the past two weeks, which more often than not break to the upside.

The wedge that CJ drew concludes at the top of a demand zone about $0.24, adding to the prospect for the wedge to break upwards, something that the crypto market analyst proposes will take XRP up to $0.35.