Bitcoin Recovers After Dipping Below $18K, Solana Leads Altcoin Relief Rally: This Week’s Crypto Recap

After a few weeks of extended suffering and depressed price action, it appears that cryptocurrencies are finally seeing some relief. The total market capitalization expanded to slightly below $1 trillion and is pushing to recover above this psychological level at the time of this writing. However, this happened following massive volatility and considerable declines.

First things first, Bitcoin’s price charted an increase of about 4.2% in the past seven days and is currently trading at above $21,000. This isn’t to say that the week wasn’t tumultuous. On the contrary – just a few days ago – on Sunday, BTC dipped to a low of $17,622 (on Binance). The last time the cryptocurrency was trading at such a low level was back in December 2020.

Fortunately, buyers stepped in and managed to intercept any further declines. Since then, the price was able to recover and increased by almost 20%. Even though this might seem impressive, Bitcoin’s recovery was dwarfed by that of many leading altcoins, the best-performing of which seems to be SOL.

Solana is up a whopping 36% in the past seven days, and almost 50% since its lows reached on Sunday – June 19th. Other altcoins are also well in the green in the same timeframe. ETH recovered by some 13% – the same as BNB. ADA is up 5.2% and is evidently lagging behind the rest of the altcoins.

XRP is up 18%, whereas the two largest memecoins by means of total market capitalization – Dogecoin and Shiba Inu – are up 20% and 35%, respectively. Meanwhile, layer-two Ethereum scaling solution – Polygon (MATIC) – has also soared tremendously by more than 50% over the past week.

All of this comes on the back of many investors and community members calling for a bottom, although market sentiment remains largely depressed across the board. Data from the popular crypto Fear and Greed Index clocks in at 11, which, although an improvement from last week, is still far into “Extreme Fear” territory.

All in all, it’s very exciting to see how the weekly candle for most of the cryptocurrencies will close on Sunday and whether or not the current relief can extend into a broader recovery or if it’s just a dead cat bounce.

Market Data

Market Cap: $987B | 24H Vol: $76B | BTC Dominance: 40.8%

BTC: $21,130 (+4.2%) | ETH: $1,200 (+13%) | ADA: $0.49 (+5.2%)

24.06

This Week’s Crypto Headlines You Can’t Miss

Tether to Launch a British Pound-Pegged Stablecoin (GBPT) in July. Tether – the company behind the largest stablecoin by market cap USDT – will launch a new stable cryptocurrency. This time, it will be pegged to the British Pound and will carry the ticker GBPT. It’s supposed to go live in July.

Bitcoin Miners Sold 100% of Their Outputs in May: Analyst. According to analysis, Bitcoin miners have been heavily selling their proceeds over the month of May. Arcane Research analysts believe they sold even more BTC in the month of June. This could also be a sign that the price is getting closer to finding its bottom.

The Largest Investors’ Realized Loss in Bitcoin History Just Happened, But There’s Good News. Investors realized more than $7 billion in losses during the weekend’s crash. This is according to research compiled by the popular resource Glassnode. This took place as Bitcoin’s price plunged from $21,000 to below $18,000 during the weekend.

Harmony Bridge Hacked, $100 Million Worth of Ethereum Lost. A number of tokens were stolen through an exploit of Harmony’s Horizon bridge adding up to a total of around $100 million. These include wBTC, wETH, AAVE, and others. The team has started working with authorities to identify the culprit and retrieve the stolen funds.

Solana Announces a New Crypto Smartphone and a Web3 Developer Kit. Solana has announced that they will produce and ship a smartphone, and users are already able to sign up for the pre-order. It will cost approximately $1,000 and will be available for purchase early next year.

Binance Partners With Soccer Legend Cristiano Ronaldo to Launch Exclusive NFT Collections. The world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange – Binance – has teamed up with soccer legend Cristiano Ronaldo. The exclusive multi-year NFT partnership aims to onboard fans into the Web3 and NFT world.