The total crypto market capitalization rejected at $1.13 trillion on Feb. 16, but there was no change in the month-long ascending channel structure. More importantly, this level represents a 43% gain in 2023, which is far from the $3 trillion level achieved in November 2021. Still, the current recovery is notable.
Total crypto market cap in U.S. dollars, 1-day. Source: TradingView
As shown above, the ascending channel initiated in mid-January has left some room for a 10% correction down to $1 trillion without breaking the bullish formation.
Investors reacted positively to the 5.6% year-on-year U.S. Consumer Price Index inflation increase on Feb. 14 and the 3% retail sales monthly growth on Feb. 15. Bitcoin (BTC) had the biggest positive impact on the total crypto capitalization as its price gained 12.5% on the week.
One area of concern is a Feb. 16 story on Binance.US financial transactions to Merit Peak, a trading firm managed by CEO Changpeng Zhao. Interestingly, Reuters reported that a Binance.US spokesperson said Merit Peak was “neither trading nor providing any kind of services on the Binance.US platform.”
The 10.1% weekly increase in total market capitalization was held back by the modest 1.8% gains from BNB (BNB) and the XRP (XRP) 2.5% price increase. On the other hand, only three out of the top 80 cryptocurrencies finished the week with negative performances.
Weekly winners and losers among the top 80 coins. Source: Messari
Decentralized storage solution Filecoin (FIL) gained 59% and Internet Computer (ICP) soared 52% as Bitcoin blockchain demand for nonfungible token (NFT) inscription vastly increased the block space.
GMX rallied 34% as the protocol received $5 million in transaction fees on a single day.
Lido DAO’s LDO gained 34% as stakers evaluated proposals to manage the 20,300 Ether (ETH) held by the corporate treasury.
Leverage demand is balanced despite the generalized rally
Perpetual contracts, also known as inverse swaps, have an embedded rate that is usually charged every eight hours. Exchanges use this fee to avoid exchange risk imbalances.
A positive funding rate indicates that longs…
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