After an unsuccessful bull run at the end of last week, Bitcoin’s price is back to where it was during our last update. Lowered interest on the market paired up with a bearish sentiment has driven the price downward around $6,400, with current market signals indicating that the trading mood hasn’t changed for the better.
However, as reported by Hacked magazine, despite Bitcoin struggling to progress higher during the past several days, the cryptocurrency’s dominance over the entire crypto market has actually increased. As the numbers indicate, Bitcoin’s market share has climbed to 52.2% last Friday – a new high for the coin. Even with the cryptocurrency’s price dropping during the weekend, Bitcoin’s share remained steady over 50% – which is a significant percentage considering we are talking about a sector that is currently worth around $221 billion, Bitcoin included.
Bears Are Charging
The past seven days were marked with another fluctuation of Bitcoin’s price as the cryptocurrency first jumped upwards before the weekend before dropping down and consolidating short after. The highest price of $6,776.12 was hit last Friday morning and only a day after Bitcoin began to slide down. As for the lowest point, it was reached early this morning when Bitcoin dropped down to a price of $6,471.27.
The 24-hour trading volume remained around $4 billion for the most part of last week, except for Friday when a boost in interest pushed the volume over $5.1 billion and consequently drove Bitcoin’s price higher. As of this moment, the volume sits at $4.17 billion while the market capitalization is at $112 billion.
According to our technical analysis, the overall mood seems to be in favor of profit-takers because the market is significantly bearish. Out of 12 technical oscillators 9 are in the red zone and sending selling signals while all 12 moving averages indicate the same trend. The gap between the SMA 100 and SMA 200 is also narrowing, hinting that the bearish force is increasing. Judging by the 1H charts and long-term signals, it seems that the price is headed toward a test of the $6,300 1-day support range.
Should the bearish trend continue, you might want to pull out if the price slides towards $6,250. As always, keep your eyes on the charts and your ears tuned to new changes, as trends can shift quickly on the BTC /USD market.
Lightning Network to Bring Adoption Boost
One of the positive updates that surfaced online this week was a successful test of the Lightning Network in an improvised vending machine. As reported by Forbes, a Spanish hacker by the name of Ricardo Reis has filmed a video demonstrating how the Lightning Network could be employed for purchasing everyday items, signaling hope for Bitcoin’s adoption into common daily activities.
In his video, Reis used Bitcoin to buy a Coca Cola bottle from a tweaked vending machine that utilizes QR codes and the Lightning Network to receive payments. If you haven’t already heard about it, Lightning Network allows for layers to be created on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. And in these layers, transactions can be exchanged without even being recorded into the blockchain.
This layer is called the “channel”, and it is actually a Bitcoin address where funds can be exchanged for unlimited numbers of times, and only recorded to the underlying blockchain after the “channel” is closed. If the network is successfully implemented into land-based vending machines and stores, like Reis demonstrated it could be, this could significantly boost Bitcoin’s adoption by allowing for instant, cheaper, and easy payments.