Key Highlights The cryptocurrency market put in a bullish performance in March, with Bitcoin leading the way with a 23.03% gain. The cryptocurrency market capitalization rose 10.19%, while the altcoin market rose 2.03%. Five cryptocurrencies to watch out for in April 2023 are Bitcoin, BNB Chain’s BNB, Ethereum’s Ether, XRP and Conflux’s CFX. The article provides an overview of the performance of each of these cryptocurrencies in March, highlighting key events that affected their prices and market trends.
The cryptocurrency space posted a bullish performance in March that pushed it into its fourth consecutive month of gains. Despite the gains seen, the market was filled with a lot of regulatory and market FUD. However, despite these events, the market still showed a massive bullish performance to close out the first quarter of the year.
Flagship cryptocurrency asset, Bitcoin, turned in a bullish performance as the rest of the market followed in its trend. It started trading from $23,147.35 at the beginning of the month and finally ended the month at $28,478.48, representing a gain of 23.03%. The cryptocurrency market cap in March rose 10.19% for the month, from $1.08 trillion at the beginning of the month to end the month at $1.19 trillion. The cryptocurrency market cap traded as high as $1.20 trillion during the month.
The Altcoin market experienced similar bullishness, gaining 2.03% in March, from around $622.1 billion to currently $634.7 billion at the end of the month. During the month, we saw the altcoin market cap trade as high as $646 billion. With the current bullish trend seen in the market, here is a look at 5 cryptocurrencies that investors should watch out for in April 2023: Bitcoin’s BTC For Bitcoin, a key point of resistance from earlier in its current halving cycle suggests that the current trading zone represents a major hurdle for bulls to overcome.
Should they pull it off, price targets extend beyond the $30,000 mark. Matthew Hyland, a crypto analyst, summed up in his latest tweet on BTC that “Bitcoin has consolidated under the biggest resistance/support of the last 2+ years. Whole new ball game if BTC breaks it. NASDAQ & S&P strong went into the weekly close.
Yet, great pessimism and disbelief as major milestones close in for Stocks/BTC. Popular Twitter account Byzantine General predicted that a breakout of resistance immediately above the spot price would result in a sea of ​​liquidations would have, leading to further upward momentum.
The account tweeted, “Feels like some bear is trying very desperately to defend the 29k to 30k region. I think that when this level breaks, massive drinks will come in. And it feels like a matter of ‘when’ not ‘if’ because there is no froth in the market, just some cola supply.” To add, according to data from Coinglass, the 23% gain seen in March almost matches its 2021 performance, with 2013 remaining the most volatile.
This is relevant because Bitcoin’s trajectory mimics both years, seeing at least three months “in the green” before significant consolidation began. Bitcoin ended the month trading at $28,478.48. BNB Chain’s BNB On March 27, the United States’ Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued Binance and its CEO, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, alleging that the company illegally offered crypto-derivative services to Americans and facilitated illegal financial activities. BNB fell more than 5.5% to $305 on the day of the announcement, recording its worst daily performance since February 13, when its price fell more than 5.8% due to another regulatory crackdown affecting Binance-branded stablecoin Binance involves USD. BNB’s price stabilized on March 28, vacillating between gains and losses as CZ refuted CFTC’s allegations. However, the BNB/USD pair is at risk of falling further if one considers its recent reaction to regulatory action.
For example, the New York regulator’s BUSD crackdown in February 2023 preceded a 15%-plus BNB price drop. BNB ended the month trading at $317.04. Ethereum’s Ether In the digital asset space, Ethereum remains the largest smart contract platform, hosting a plethora of financial products, innovation and automation, with varying degrees of decentralization (commonly referred to as DeFi). From a chain perspective, Ether’s short-term and long-term trends look skewed towards the bulls.
Most Ethereum whale cohorts have increased their ETH accumulation in recent weeks, according to the latest data from Santiment. For example, the supply of Ether held by addresses with a 1,000-10,000 ETH balance (blue in the chart below) grew by 0.5% in March. Similarly, the 1 million-10 million ETH and the 10 million-100 million ETH balance cohorts saw 0.4% and 0.5% increases respectively.
The growth appeared amid what appears to be the absorption of selling pressure set by the 100,000-1 million ETH (pink) and 10,000-100,000 ETH address cohorts. At the same time, the growth can be attributed to the network’s proof-of-stake contracts, either directly or using third-party stakeholders such as Lido DAO (LDO).
The net Ether deposited at the official Ethereum 2.0 address crossed above 18 million ETH after rising about 3.5% in March. The deposits grew ahead of Ethereum’s Shanghai and Capella upgrades on April 12, which will allow stakeholders to withdraw ETH from the PoS smart contract. Currently this is not possible. Ether traded at $1,822.02 for the month. XRP Ripple’s chances of winning the court case against the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) improved on March 21 after the presiding judge, Analisa Torres, decided to exclude an expert’s opinion explaining how a security can be .
On March 27, another US regulatory move was a blessing in disguise for XRP holders. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in the US charged Binance with improper compliance procedures and market manipulation. The regulatory body classified Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin as commodities in the filing. Some believe that this classification will also extend to XRP. Thus, effectively refuting the SEC’s claim that XRP is a security.
The market’s expectation of Ripple winning the case against the SEC has already pushed XRP’s price to new annual highs this month and if Ripple continues to win the case against the SEC, the bullish momentum in XRP is likely to continue in the medium to long term .
To add, XRP was the fourth biggest gainer for March 2023 as it hit a 10-month high. XRP ended the month trading at $0.5385. Conflux’s CFX Conflux (CFX) is a public layer-1 blockchain built to power decentralized applications (dApps), e-commerce and Web 3.0 infrastructure by being more scalable, decentralized and secure than existing protocols.
The protocol makes it easier to transfer valuable assets by making the process fast, efficient, free from network congestion and with low transaction costs. The platform is based on the Tree-Graph consensus mechanism, and it combines Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithms to achieve consensus.
The protocol uses Turing-complete smart contracts written in Solidity, just like those on Ethereum, and is compatible with the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine). Conflux Network continued its positive run from February and nearly doubled its price in March. The project’s team continued to strengthen its partnerships in China by adding XCMD, the world’s third largest construction machinery manufacturer, and Zen Spark Technology. The Conflux team also supports the development of permissionless applications.
It has established a grant program to promote its ecosystem development. Over the years, Conflux has earned the reputation of a Chinese enterprise blockchain with partners in Oreo China, McDonald’s China and Chinese Instagram equivalent Little Red Book. The blockchain also hosts a stablecoin pegged to the Chinese yuan with the approval of the Chinese government, which is highly encouraging given the authorities’ tight influence on state policy.
CONCLUSION
The Conflux Network deploys both proof-of-work and proof-of-stake mechanisms to increase scalability and decentralization. The network processes between 3,000 to 6,000 transactions per second, which is significantly faster than Ethereum’s speed of 15 tps. While Conflux has partnered with leading Chinese brands, the activity on the blockchain has yet to justify the 500% increase in CFX’s price increase in the past two months.
Data shows that the number of new Conflux addresses and NFTs minted on the platform remained on par with previous months with no apparent increase. CFX ended the month trading at $0.4134. Related