Last week was a sluggish week for Bitcoin, though it managed to hold the $10K-mark. But it was a strong week for other cryptocurrencies. ETH was up 18.32%, XRP was up 11.69%, LTC was up 5.60%, and XLM up 24.10% — see Table 1.
Table 1
Seven-Day Price Change For Major Cryptocurrencies
| Cryptocurrency | %7d |
| BTC | -2.78% |
| ETH | 18.32 |
| XRP | 11.69 |
| LTC | 5.90 |
| XLM | 24.10 |
Source : Coinmarketcap.com 9/21/19 at 12:30 p.m.
Building on gains from the previous weeks, the cryptocurrency rally is broadening, with 78 cryptocurrencies advancing out of the top 100 — see table 2.
That’s a big difference from a couple of weeks ago when only 42 out of the top 100 advanced — see table 3.
Table 2
Number of Cryptocurrencies That Advanced/Declined In The Top 100 Ranks
| Cryptocurrencies Advance/Decline | Number |
| Advance | 78 |
| Decile | 22 |
Source : Coinmarketcap.com 9/21/19 at 12:30 p.m.
Table 3
| Cryptocurrencies Advance/Decline | Number |
| Advance | 42 |
| Decile | 58 |
Source : Coinmarketcap.com 9/7/19 at 2:30 p.m.
Still, the fact that Bitcoin dropped as other cryptocurrencies rallied, indicates that money pouring into these currencies is coming out from Bitcoin rather from new investors.
That isn’t a good near-term technical indicator. Nicholas Pelecanos, Advisor at NEM Ventures, is concerned about the technicals of the cryptocurrency markets, but is bullish on the fundamentals. “Bitcoin’s price action is currently approaching the breakout region of a technical descending triangle,” he says. “Forming since late June, this bearish chart pattern may not be giving a clear indication on sentiment, as strong fundamental tides further increase the bull case for Bitcoin.”
Like the case for Bitcoin gaining prominence as a hedge against uncertainty. “This week saw the Federal Reserve further lower the cash rate and take moves to bail out the repo market, which nods to increasing macro uncertainty,” he says. “2019 has seen Bitcoin’s prominence as a hedge against global uncertainty increase and with the release of Bakkt futures on Monday, September 23rd, institutions will now have an instrument in which they can fully exploit this with Bitcoin settled futures.”
Then there’s the bullish case for Ethereum. “Ethereum has recently overtaken Bitcoin in daily transaction fees, which demonstrates real demand for network usage with such demand generally equating to higher prices for the token native to the network,” he says. “This demand has likely been a result of Tether switching a portion of their US dollar backed stable coin (USDT) transactions from Omni (a protocol built on Bitcoin) to Ethereum.”
That’s a bullish sign for the entire cryptocurrency market. “Strong rallies in the ETH price have traditionally been a green light to further bullish movement in the wider altcoin market,” he says. “This time has been no different with pairs such as LTC USD and XRP USD both clocking +10% gains over the week.”
And it’s eventually good for Bitcoin, too. “Alt coin profit is generally consolidated in BTC so a slow-down in the Alts coupled with growing global uncertainty might create enough demand to help BTC break the upside of the triangle,” he says.
Ryan Uhr, CEO and co-founder of Coinplug Inc. disregards what’s going on in the cryptocurrency market right now, as “noise.” He remains neutral in the short-term, but bullish in the long-term, too. “Noise is the melody in this market and I would stay neutral in the short term, long-term-wise I remain bullish,” he says. “BTC, ETH, and USDT can be regarded as entrances to altcoin markets where most trading pairs are against these three major coins. They are also headliners that attract people into the cryptocurrency market and eventually get them interested in altcoins.”
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