Market Cover: Bitcoin hangs at $ 36.4K while Ether flies to over $ 1.4K

Trading action in the bitcoin market slowed on Tuesday as the eater’s price broke new ground.

The price of bitcoin remained in a reasonable range on Tuesday, spending most US trading hours between $ 36,200 and $ 37,200. Around 15:00 UTC (11 a.m. ET), the price rose to $ 37,876 before dropping to $ 36,483 at the time of printing.

‘Interesting yesterday that bitcoin raised its price in a quiet US market with the [Martin Luther King Day] holiday, ”remarked Chris Thomas, head of digital assets at Swissquote Bank. “It also indicates that American customers, both retail and institutional, are very important.”

Read more: Bitcoin price must pass $ 40,000 to stop merchant exodus: JPMorgan

“We had two failed attempts to break and stay above $ 40,000, but we also saw it at $ 20,000 and $ 30,000,” Thomas said. “I suspect we’ll get $ 40,000 the next day or two.”

While prices remain less volatile than before, traders appear to be increasing more risks.

“It looks like bitcoin has been squeezed between a tightened range of $ 34,000 and $ 38,000 over the past week, but the market will be longer leveraged,” said Cindy Leow, portfolio manager for the multistrategy trading firm 256 Capital Partners.

According to data collector Skew, leverage in large places remains high. Kraken in particular has shown high volatility in funding rates, but as of Tuesday is offering the most for crypto-holders to offer liquidity to lift long-term, at 0.0471%.

“We view this as short-term bearish, indicating that too many market participants are eager for an upside-down break,” Leow added. ” In addition, sellers seem exhausted, and the market is very short on dollars with frothy USD / stable lending rates. ‘

According to DeFi Pulse, credit to decentralized finance, or DeFi, has passed $ 12 billion, with the stable currency Maker dai (DAI) accounting for more than 39% of the stock. Dai is currently making $ 4.7 billion from the DeFi lending market, which is more than 11% on Tuesday.

Some of this DeFi peak also comes from a rising ether price, which on Tuesday brought a breakout to new highs while bitcoin remained relatively quiet. “Ether looks very strong and I think we are now going to take part in a race between a $ 2,000 ETH and $ 50,000 BTC,” said Thomas of Swissquote.

“We see that ETH is likely to resist its everyday high, similar to the way BTC was initially rejected at its previous $ 19,000 high in November 2020 before resuming a rising trend,” 256 Capital’s Leow said.

Ether (ETH), the second-largest market-capitalized cryptocurrency, was higher on Tuesday, trading at around $ 1,384, up 12.7% in 24 hours from 21:00 UTC (16:00 ET).

The spot price of ether reached an all-time high on Tuesday, rising to $ 1,439 and only declining the previous high of $ 1,432.88 on January 13, 2018.

Read more: Ethereum Ether cryptocurrency sets a new all-time high near $ 1,440

George Clayton, managing partner of the crypto-fund Cryptanalysis Capital, questions the fundamentals behind the rise of ether, while bitcoin is not related to the rise of ETH. “Interesting price action,” Clayton told CoinDesk.

He noted that the average fees on the network usually increase with these price runs, which harms the usability. Ethereum’s DeFi projects are becoming more expensive to use during price runs, because processing fees, or ‘gas’ in ether increments, are required for their use.

“With rates at such astronomical levels, Ethereum is becoming sclerotic and exclusive,” Clayton added. “Must hope that ETH 1.5 and rollups relieve pressure.”

Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are mostly green on Tuesday. Notable winners from 21:00 UTC (16:00 ET):

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