The crypto market went into consolidation mode on Thursday following its relief bounce, with Bitcoin (BTC) and a few altcoins registering moderate gains intra-day with a healthy distance between their Wednesday dip and Friday morning prices. q. Trade volumes across exchanges, however, declined by 14 per cent over the same period.

BTC remained range-bound, with a gain of 1 per cent today to end at $44,550. Having flipped its $43,000 resistance to support, BTC held its ground from an intraday low of $43,450 as it prepared for an upwards move, but was repeatedly thwarted by strong resistance at the $45,000 level. BTC dominance rose to close at 42.2 per cent.

Ethereum (ETH) showed signs of an extended rally, holding well above the $3,000 and even breaking the $3,150 resistance level briefly to show signs of bullishness, with an intra-day high of $3,170. It is currently trading at $3,100 with support at $3,050 and major resistance at $3,300.

Key altcoins had a mixed day with Algorand (ALGO), Terra (LUNA), Polkadot (DOT), and Cosmos (ATOM) registering gains of over 2 per cent while Ripple (XRP), Solana (SOL), and Uniswap (UNI) had modest declines.

BTC is expected to remain range-bound this week, with analysts expecting its price actions to top around $46,000-48,000 before undergoing another dip. As BTC continues to hold above its 20-week moving average at $40,700, major altcoins are likely to register growth.

Top Gainers today:

1. Ren (REN): 23.8%
2. THORChain (RUNE): 13.9%
3. NEAR Protocol (NEAR): 12.9%

Top Losers today:

1. Perpetual Protocol (PREP): -8.4%
2. Maker (MKR): -5.3%
3. Stacks (STX): -4.2%

The analysis includes the top 100 cryptocurrencies only as of 9 am IST

Source: CoinMarketCap

Crypto News at a Glance:

1. Twitter has rolled out a Bitcoin-based payment/tipping feature for iOS users, including support for Lightning wallets, as part of its plan to support creators on its platform with a similar rollout for Android soon to follow.
2. BTG Pactual, a Brazilian investment bank with over $70 billion in assets under management (AUM), has announced the launch of a new platform that enables customers to make direct investments in Bitcoin.
3. Blockchain infrastructure developer Blockdaemon has raised $155 million in a Series B funding round led by the Softbank Vision Fund 2 to further expand its DeFi infrastructure and bridge the gap between digital assets and traditional banking.
4. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has reached an agreement with The Dubai World Trade Centre Authority (DWTCA) to officially allow and support cryptocurrency trading in an economic-free zone in Dubai.
5. Investment management firms Invesco and Galaxy Digital Holdings have partnered together to launch exchange-traded funds (ETFs) backed by the cryptocurrency as it aims to track the performance of cryptocurrencies while trading like a stock.
6. One of the first websites about Bitcoin - Bitcoin.org - has been hacked by scammers, as confirmed by the site’s anonymous founder.