Markets Update: A Narrowing Range of Consolidation and Lower Trade Volumes

Not a lot has changed since our last markets update four days ago as cryptocurrency markets continue moving sideways in a consolidated pattern. The top five digital assets have seen modest northbound gains this week, with increases between 1-5% over the last seven days. This Sunday, Oct. 21, the entire cryptocurrency economy of over 2,000 digital tokens is valued at $214.4 billion.

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Boring Market Action Often Leads to Something Unexpected

It’s been a lackluster week for cryptocurrency traders as not much has been happening, except for a few stablecoins having some interesting breakouts a few days ago. Since then most of the stablecoins, funnily enough, have seen less volatility and actually remained ‘stable.’ Top performing digital assets like bitcoin cash (BCH), ethereum (ETH), and bitcoin core (BTC) dropped a hair in value last week as traditional finance investments plummeted. However, these digital assets have regained the very small losses that took place on Oct. 19, and most of the top coins are up over the last seven days. This weekend, bulls seem to be strengthening their positions for another attempt to intensify a bearish-to-bullish trend change.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Market Action

Bitcoin cash (BCH) is currently trading at $452 per coin this Sunday, with a market valuation of about $7.85 billion. Much like BTC and the rest of the top cryptocurrency markets, bitcoin cash trade volumes have been waning. Four days ago, BCH daily trade volumes were above $300 million, but have since dropped to $281.3 million. The top exchanges trading the most BCH today include Lbank, Hitbtc, Binance, Okex, and Bithumb. The dominant five trading pairs swapped for bitcoin cash this weekend are BTC (43%), USDT (29%), ETH (10.9%), KRW (8.6%), and USD (3.1%). The US dollar pair has dropped considerably against BCH, and the Korean won has jumped a good percentage upwards when it comes to global fiat volumes. Bitcoin cash this weekend is the sixth most traded cryptocurrency among the entire crypto-economy.

BCH/USD Technical Indicators

Looking at charts over the last few days is similar to looking at the ocean’s horizon or a straight line. The four-hour and daily charts for BCH/USD show bulls look as though they are attempting to breakout upwards again in the near term. However, the two simple moving averages (SMA) have crossed hairs, indicating a trend change could be imminent. The 200 SMA is now just above the 100 SMA, showing the path towards the least resistance is likely the downside at the moment.

Relative strength index (RSI) levels are meandering in the middle (-54.47), showing traders may be indecisive. The MACd shows a similar readout, indicating there could be room for improvement or a break toward the downside. Order books show bears will be stopped short in the $420 region and see another pitstop around $385 as well. BCH bulls need to press past the current vantage point and surpass a large sum of orders between the $460 through $500 range. After that, BCH bulls still need to defeat big walls above the $520 range and higher to keep momentum going strong.

The Verdict: Positive News Hasn’t Erased Market Skepticism  

Overall there’s been a lot of news concerning institutional investment coming into the space and many crypto proponents are pleased to see these new entries. For instance, Fidelity Investments recently announced launching a trading desk, and Caspian’s multi-exchange trading platform came out of beta. Bitgo raised $57.5 million and Genesis Global Trading reports that institutional traders have borrowed $553 million worth of digital assets since March 2018. Meanwhile, Bitcoin Cash fans have seen an exponential increase in adoption and development over the last seven days. The outlook is surely positive for the future of cryptocurrencies, but markets don’t seem to be reflecting the optimism. The verdict this week is still skeptical as far as short-term market prices are concerned. This is due to weak cryptocurrency market volumes, a narrowing range of consolidation, and the previous and very interesting stablecoin fluctuations that occurred earlier this week.

Where do you see the price of bitcoin cash and other coins headed from here? Let us know in the comment section below.

Disclaimer: Price articles and markets updates are intended for informational purposes only and should not to be considered as trading advice. Neither Bitcoin.com nor the author is responsible for any losses or gains, as the ultimate decision to conduct a trade is made by the reader. Always remember that only those in possession of the private keys are in control of the “money.”

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