Cryptocurrency market update: Altcoin recovery ahead?

Bitcoin has rebounded spectacularly over the last few days, with price up 25% since last Monday. However, the altcoin market is still looking gloomy, with many top altcoins continuing to trade well below expected key levels.

However, should traders and investors really be worried? After all, aren’t these kinds of retracements welcomed by enthusiasts to make new entries?

Remember that in the previous bull run, price would often retrace between 30% to 40% a few times before reaching all-time highs. Therefore, there’s still potential for the altcoin market to recover soon and start following Bitcoin as the bull market pushes on.

Let’s take a look at how I believe the top coins will behave over the next week.

Bitcoin

At the time of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) is trading just above $11,700 after a significant recovery over the weekend. Price has now grown a whopping 25% since last Monday.

As you can see from the chart above, BTC is now firmly back above its 20-day EMA after a couple of weeks of price bouncing around it.

Last week I said I expected price to bounce between $9,000 and $11,000 before making its way upwards again towards the $12,000 and $13,000 levels and above.

At the moment, I believe Bitcoin will continue to push higher, especially after the US Federal Reserve’s rate cut last week and the US-China trade war wreaking havoc on the traditional financial markets.

Bitcoin also experienced a golden cross on the four-hour chart recently, which could signify further upwards price movement.

Ethereum

Compared to Bitcoin, Ethereum has not fared quite so well. Since May, ETH has lost close to 50% of its total value against BTC, going from 3,100,000 SATs to 1,900,000 before recovering back to the 1,920,000 region. Depending on how BTC performs, we can expect ETH to follow.

Looking at the chart above, we can clearly see that ETH has been on a massive downtrend against Bitcoin since it touched its all-time high in early 2018, when it was trading around 12,000,000 SATs.

Although ETH could go further down in price against BTC, by looking at the volume profile, I argue that is quite unlikely. In fact, following Bitcoin’s recent uptrend, the price of ETH has gone up from $220 to $235 over the past few days.

If we were to assume ETH could return to its early 2018 value vs BTC, Ethereum would need about a 5.5x jump from where price is sitting now – meaning you could still potentially 5x your BTC if you bought at current prices and sold near new all-time highs.

Litecoin

Litecoin, one of the top performers of 2019, hasn’t been able to sustain its yearly gains, and it finally came tumbling down below most of its EMAs toward the end of June and into early July.

At the moment, LTC is already trading below its 200-day EMA at around 8,750,000 SATs – about 15% lower than last week. During mid-June, Litecoin was trading above its 10-day, 20-day, and 100-day EMAs at around 17,500,000 SATs. In essence, the coin has lost over 50% of its value against Bitcoin in just two months.

As I mentioned with Ethereum, there’s not much to say given the rising influence of Bitcoin’s price on the market. My hope is that this is just a momentary dip, and investors will take this opportunity to make new entries.

If Litecoin is able to gain some momentum and return to at least its 100-day EMA, that would indicate the altcoin market is looking to recover. Until then, I would use the same strategy as with ETH, given LTC could grow about 2x from where it’s currently sitting.

The most recent Litecoin halving, which took place two days ago, will most likely be a trigger for price to move upwards within the next 12 to 18 months, I believe.

Bitcoin Cash

Bitcoin Cash was also hit hard by the sudden move downwards in the market. Its price, which was trading above 5,000,000 SATs in June, is now just above 3,000,000 SATs, with BCH losing close to 45% of its total market value in just a few weeks.

Although BCH has been one of the worst performers of the top coins, it is still quite far away from its all-time lows of close to 2,500,000 SATs.

Looking at the chart, we can see price is trading below all its EMAs, even though volume-wise BCH is still supported by a massive wall between 3,000,000 and 3,600,000 SATs. As long as BTC recovers, I expect BCH to do the same as investors and traders will be looking to ride the trend upwards, much like we saw with LTC earlier this year.

Ripple

Ripple (XRP) is now close to its all-time low of around 1,300 SATs, and it is currently trading below all its EMAs – a sign of great weakness. Last week I mentioned I wasn’t expecting XRP to break below 3,000 SATs. However, XRP went further down toward 2,800 SATs over the weekend.

Investors should be wary of making new entries as the market is currently under turmoil, and the coins that usually take the hardest hits are the ones on a clear downtrend – like XRP.

Hopefully, if Bitcoin recovers, XRP will soon follow. However, for the moment, I’ll keep my hands off Ripple until the coin shows some clear signs of recovery – like breaking above 3,500 SATs.

Conclusion

At this point, the market could either go up or down, and it all comes down to BTC’s performance. As we know, its dominance is growing by the day, meaning its impact on the entire market is also increasing. Let’s hope BTC can push the rest of the market upwards, as it is clearly now on a bull trend!

Safe trades!

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the author’s only. This article isn’t financial advice or promotional material; it represents my personal opinion and should not be attributed to Coin Rivet. I have savings invested in cryptocurrency so take whatever I write with a grain of salt. Do not invest what you cannot afford to lose and always read as much as possible about a project before investing.