Bitcoin, Ether, and XRP Weekly Market Update February 17, 2020

The total crypto market cap lost $7 billion of its value for the last seven days and now stands at $280.8 billion. The top 10 currencies are mostly in red for the same time frame with Bitcoin SV (BSV) and EOS (EOS) leading the pack with 21.3 and 16.8 percent of losses respectively. By the time of writing bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $9,795 while ether (ETH) moved up to $252. Ripple’s XRP is trading at $0.282.

BTC/USD

Bitcoin finally broke the psychological level of $10,000 on Sunday, February 9 and closed the seven-day period at $10,177, with 9.3 percent of increase.

On Monday, February 10, the most popular cryptocurrency started the new trading period by falling down to $9,843. The 3.2 percent correction was seen by the majority of the analysts as a healthy retrace in an already overheated bull run. A proper consolidation was required for BTC and it found it in the middle of the uptrend channel.

The second day of the workweek brought green back to the chart as the BTC/USD pair regained its positions and stopped at $10,249. The next obvious target for buyers was the $10,900 – $11,000 zone, but not before confirming its presence in the mid-$10k area.

On Wednesday, February 12, bitcoin was less volatile and was trading in the $10,251 – $10,514 range just to close with a small gain to $10,347.

BTC was rejected for the second consecutive day at $10,500 on Thursday. The coin was unable to find its stability and failed to print a new local high. The uptrend was intact as its middle line once again provided support.

On Friday, February 14, it climbed up to $10,361 erasing all losses from the previous session.

The weekend started with a sudden drop to $9,889 on Saturday. Bitcoin lost 4.5 percent of its value and hit the 20-day Moving average.

It remained flat on Sunday and closed the week with a 2.8 percent loss.

ETH/USD

The Ethereum Project token ETH moved up to $228 on Sunday, February 9 and ended the week 21 percent higher compared to the previous seven-day period.

It was rejected at $230 on Monday, February 10 and dropped down to $223. The ETH/USD pair was trading as low as $213 during intraday but managed to recover later in the evening.

On Tuesday, February 11, the coin skyrocketed to $238, which resulted in a 6.7 percent price increase. It was already 48 percent up since January 26 when the current uptrend was started.

The mid-week session on Wednesday was no different and the ETH token continued to climb. It successfully broke above the important level at $250 and continued its way towards the next major resistance – $275. Bulls were looking to close their eighth green candle for the last nine days. The coin peaked at $277 and ended the session at $266,11 percent up.

The trading day on Thursday, February 13 was mainly in the wide-area between $278 and $255 as ETH closed with a small increase to $269.

The last day of the workweek came with a fourth consecutive green candle and a move to $285. The ether registered a new 7-month high.

On Saturday, February 15, the major altcoin fell down to $265 completely erasing all gains from the previous session as the whole crypto market was experiencing double-digit losses. It’s worth mentioning that back in May-June 2019 it was ranging in the $230-$270 area for more than 20 days before breaking down.

We continued to slide on Sunday, this time to $259, after trading in the $276-$234 zone throughout the day.

XRP/USD

The Ripple company XRP regained its position above $0.28 on Sunday, February 9 and closed at $0.282 with a 12.8 percent increase on a weekly basis.

The XRP/USD pair could not keep above the support line and fell down to $0.273 on Monday. It was trading as low as $0.266 during intraday and hit the low end of the support channel.

On Tuesday, February 11, it rebounded from the mentioned level and climbed up to $0.282.

The trading session on Wednesday was more than good for bulls as the XRP extended its gains to $0.305, reaching the psychological level at $0.30. The coin added 8.1 percent to its value.

On Thursday, February 13, we saw a third consecutive green candle on the daily chart. The “ripple” peaked at $0.341 in the early hours of trading and closed with a solid increase to $0.326.

The last day of the workweek came with a highly volatile session during which the popular altcoin was trading in the $0.339 – $0.31 range, ending the day at $0.336.

The weekend started with a significant price correction on Saturday, February 15. The XRP/USD pair followed BTC and fell all the way down to $0.307, erasing 8.6 percent of its price. On Sunday, it continued the freefall to $0.292, still 3.5 percent up on a weekly basis.

Altcoin of the Week

Our Altcoin of the week is OKB (OKB). This cryptocurrency is the native token of the OKEx exchange and is presented as a bridge between digital asset projects and OKEx platform users and investors. It facilitates the development of an OKEx-managed ecosystem, very much like the Binance’s BNB token.

OKB added 67 percent to its value for the last seven days and is also 100 percent up for the last two weeks. It peaked at $7.33 on Sunday, February 16 thus making it the #12 coin on the CoinGecko’ Top 100 list with a total market capitalization of approximately $1,879 billion.

Most probably the reason for the recent surge is the OKChain test net and OKEx DEX launch on February 10. As announced on the same day, the new platform will allow users to issue their very own digital assets on the public chain, and create their own exchange.

As of the time of writing, the OKB is trading at 0.0006674 against Bitcoin on the OKEx exchange.