It was a bullish Saturday session, with the crypto market steadying after the market reaction to the Merge. However, Fed fear could test buyers.
It was a bullish Saturday session for the crypto top ten. XRP led the top ten, with ETH avoiding a third consecutive session in the red. Improving market conditions also saw BTC return to $20,000.
Market sentiment improved through Saturday, with investors brushing aside fears of a US recession. Heavy losses across the crypto market drew dip buyers to support the bullish Saturday session.
However, the crypto market is in for a choppy week ahead. The Fed will deliver its monetary policy decision and economic projections on Wednesday. A Fed Chair Powell press conference will also draw plenty of interest. Hawkish chatter and talk of more 75-basis point hikes would be crypto negative.
On the economic data front, it is a quieter week, with no material stats until the end of the week. On Thursday, jobless claims will provide direction ahead of prelim private sector PMI numbers on Friday.
Last week, the Ethereum Merge led to the crypto market decoupling from the NASDAQ 100. However, with the market focus on the Fed, we can expect a close correlation in the week ahead.
On Saturday, the crypto market cap fell to a mid-day low of $919.4 billion before rising to a final hour high of $946.0 billion.
Recession fears failed to weigh, with dip buyers jumping in following the market reaction to the Ethereum Merge. Easing fear of a percentage point Fed rate hike also provided crypto market support.
However, following Tuesday’s US CPI report and the Ethereum Merge-driven selloffs, the crypto market cap is down $97 billion for the week. On Saturday, the crypto market cap rose by $16.5 billion to $941.8 billion.
It was a bullish Saturday session for the crypto top ten.
XRP rallied by 5.87% to lead the way, with SOL (+4.50%) close behind.
ADA (+2.32%), DOGE (+2.88%), and ETH (+2.46) also found strong support while BNB (+1.53%), BTC (+1.57%) trailed.
From the CoinMarketCap top 100, it is a mixed session.
ApeCoin (APE) led the way, surging by 20.83%, with Chiliz (CHZ) and yearn.finance (YFI) seeing gains of 7.12% and 7.90%, respectively.
However, ravencoin (RVN) continued to struggle, falling by 3.56%, with cosmos (ATOM) and celsius (CEL) seeing losses of 1.16% and 1.05%, respectively.
Over 24 hours, total liquidations fell below normal as market tensions eased further following Thursday’s Ethereum Merge.
At the time of writing, 24-hour liquidations stood at $58.46 million, down from $130.21 million on Saturday morning.
Liquidated traders over the last 24 hours also declined. At the time of writing, liquidated traders stood at 23,956 versus 50,469 on Saturday morning.
Liquidations over twelve hours also fell while rising over 4 hours and one hour.
According to Coinglass, 12-hour liquidations stood at $39.49 million, down from $93.63 million on Saturday morning. Four-hour liquidations rose from $11.27 million to $12.02 million, with one-hour liquidations up from $2.24 million to $3.76 million. The chart below shows market conditions throughout the session.
With over 28 years of experience in the financial industry, Bob has worked with various global rating agencies and multinational banks. Currently he is covering currencies, commodities, alternative asset classes and global equities, focusing mostly on European and Asian markets.