The global cryptocurrency market shrunk by 1.5 per cent today and ended at $2.05 trillion as of 9 am IST with Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Cardano (ADA) facing selling pressures at overhead resistance levels. Traders are looking for profits indicating a possible sell-off with trade volumes across exchanges soaring by 20 per cent.

BTC had a gloomy start to the week as it registered a 4 per cent red candle intraday to close at $47,145, a 2 per cent overall drop. The relative strength index (RSI), which recently broke below a symmetrical triangle, failed to climb up indicating further weakness. BTC trade volumes rose by 18 per cent while the 200-day moving average at $46,050 continues to act as crucial support. $47,600 and $48,000 will remain as short-term resistance.

ETH failed to break resistance at $3,345, once again, as bears continued to defend the overhead zone aggressively. However, ETH had a strong rebound at $3,140 (its 20-day EMA) to close the day at $3,225. Its support levels are forming at $3,100 and $3,000.

Majority of the top 20 cryptocurrencies, excluding the dollar-pegged stablecoins, were in a downtrend reflecting the overall bearish sentiment in the market. Solana (SOL) continued to deliver impressive daily gains with a 14 per cent increase today, Polkadot (DOT) and Uniswap (UNI) also posted modest gains.

BTC, having gained 15 per cent in August, will step into September hoping to defend its gains. September has historically been a month of correction for BTC with declines in the last four years. Traders expect a consolidation near $50,000 to happen in the second half of September before it heads towards $55,000.

Top Gainers today:

1. Celo (CELO): 56.3%
2. Arweave (AR): 45.2%
3. Harmony (ONE): 22.9%

Top Losers today:

1. Revain (REV): -8.8%
2. Avalanche (AVAX): -8.4%
3. Amp (AMP): -8.1%

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

Source: CoinMarketCap

Crypto News at a Glance:

1. xToken, a decentralized finance (DeFi) project, suffered another hack worth $4.5 million as hackers exploited a vulnerability in the smart contracts of its xSNX product. In May, xToken suffered a similar breach costing the protocol around $25 million.
2. Singapore central bank has shortlisted 15 fintech firms to help build an in-house retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) as a part of its “Global CBDC Challenge” to seek new solutions.
3. Fantom Foundation has committed 370 million FTM tokens to an incentive program that will allow the protocol teams to apply for rewards if the total value locked (TVL) on that protocol can stay above a time-weighted-average of $5 million or more for an extended period of time.
4. UK-based bank Standard Chartered has partnered with Chinese supply chain finance technology provider Linklogis to launch a blockchain-powered trade finance platform.
5. DeFi lending and staking firm Parallel Finance has raised $22 million in a Series A funding round led by Polychain Capital valuing the polkadot and kusama-focused DeFi protocol at $150 million.

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