The past week has been eventful in the crypto space, with altcoin projects taking charge after a long time. Bitcoin oscillated around $22,000. Ethereum and its layer-1 rivals outperformed the broader market. Here are the details…
Altcoin market slightly rises
Altcoins have dominated the crypto market last week, adding nearly $50 billion in total market cap. The world’s second largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum (ETH), surpassed the $1,400 levels last weekend. Its weekly earnings are over 22 percent as of now. The ETH price rose as developers confirmed that they should launch the much anticipated Merge upgrade on the Ethereum mainnet during the week of September 19. This upgrade improves network scalability. It reduces network congestion and transaction costs.
Ethereum layer-1 competitors
Along with Ethereum, other Tier-1 competitors performed strongly last week. Solana (SOL) rally strong 14 percent. She has surpassed $40 levels as of now. On technical charts, the SOL is trying to surpass the 50-day exponential moving average (EMA). Lark Davis used the following statements on this subject:
SOL is trying to break above the 50-day EMA. If successful, resistance levels are at $42, $45 and $48.
$sol trying to get above the 50 day EMA again after yesterday's rejection.
If successful the next key areas of resistance are at $42, $45, and $48. pic.twitter.com/6YV04tHi3l
— Lark Davis (@TheCryptoLark) July 18, 2022
It could reach $48 if it breaks some key resistances. Avalanche (AVAX) is another layer-1 competitor that has yielded about 18 percent last week and crossed $21. AVAX had a performance last quarter amid the wider crypto meltdown. The cryptocurrency has already corrected more than 80 percent of its all-time high.
Polygon rose hard
Another altcoin that performed extremely well last week is MATIC by Polygon, Ethereum’s own Layer-2 scalability platform. The MATIC price has skyrocketed an astonishing 45 percent last week. It exceeded $0.80. Last week, Polygon became the only Blockchain selected for Disney’s accelerator program this year. On the technical charts, MATIC appears to be overbought as of now. On the upside, MATIC could touch the $1 levels. For MATIC, Davis said that “the 100-day EMA has been exceeded.” On the other hand, it is stated that the RSI is oversold. He says the next target for Polygon is $1 at the 200-day EMA.
$matic rallying hard!
Passing over the 100 day EMA.
Entering overbought on RSI. Careful.
Next big target would be $1 around the 200 day EMA! pic.twitter.com/fMOh5iEn3c
— Lark Davis (@TheCryptoLark) July 18, 2022
Ethereum network performance and competitors
While the ETH price faced a 75% meltdown from the top, it was resilient in terms of network performance and user activity compared to its competitors. Similarly, “the number of daily active addresses on BNB Chain and Ethereum has decreased by 68.8 percent and 27.2 percent, respectively, since November 2021”. On the other hand, Solana witnessed a 20% increase in daily active addresses.
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