Market highlights December 29: Cryptos seen lower, Wall Street mixed following post-Christmas gains

The crypto market as a whole is bearish with all top 20 coins registering losses except for UniSwap, which continues yesterday’s bull run, albeit only with slight gains. US indices were mixed yesterday as investors locked in their recent gains before the end of the year. 

Top cryptos

Bitcoin was down approximately 2%, trading below $48,000 this morning. Ethereum, Cardano, and XRP were all down around 3%. The biggest losers in the top 20 are Avalanche and Solana. Both have declined by around 7% each.

The live Terra price today is $86.55 with a 24-hour trading volume of $2.8 billion. The ninth biggest coin by market cap has lost 6% in the last 24 hours, leading some traders to buy the dip.

Top movers

The bearish trend continues outside the top 20. One of the few gainers is Fantom, the price of which exploded as the total value locked in the network crossed $5.83 billion in the past week. Today, it’s up 5%.

The live Harvest Finance price today is $175.41 with a 24-hour trading volume of $660.5 million. Harvest Finance is up just under 11% today. Harvest automatically farms the highest yield available from the newest DeFi protocols and optimizes the yields that are received using the latest farming techniques.

ROSE is the native token of Oasis Network, the 80th largest coin by market cap. After a series of losses, it’s starting to gain again – 8% today.

SushiSwap continues to trend. It has gained 9% in the last 24 hours.

Other winners include Zilliqa and Livepeer, up 6% resp. 4%.

Aave is among the biggest losers with a drop of 13%. Kadena continues its bear run with a fresh loss of 10% in the last 24 hours.

ICON is reversing yesterday’s gains rapidly. The layer one blockchain, which aims to build an interoperable blockchain network between autonomous online communities and real-world enterprises, has lost 16% so far today.

Trending

VNX is a Luxembourg-based digital asset issuance platform, which developed an end-to-end regulatory compliant platform to organize digital assets offerings. Today, it has gained 151%.

RichQuack is a hyper deflationary token that generates automatic liquidity, which in turn pays out static rewards to holders. It’s a new coin based on an interesting premise. It’s also trending today.  

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Solana and other Layer-1 tokens to outperform ETH in 2022: Arcane Research

  • Arcane Research analysts believe one of the strongest crypto narratives over the next twelve months will be the performance of the so-called “ETH killers.”

  • They also predict Bitcoin will outperform the S&P 500 

Crypto research platform Arcane Research says that 2022 will see layer-1 platforms continue to outperform Ethereum, based on analysis of the crypto market and other developments within the crypto space in 2021.

Other than its predictions for layer-1s against Ethereum, the final report of 2021 from the company touched on Bitcoin vs. the S&P 500, DeFi, the NFTs market, the outlook for Cardano and XRP, meme coin mania as exacerbated by the “dog coin wars”, and derivatives.

2022 prediction: Layer-1s to outperform ETH

In a report released on 28 December via the blockchain data analysis and research firm’s The Weekly Update, Solana, Avalanche, Terra Luna, and Fantom are all poised for further gains in the next year, with the native tokens on these standalone smart contract networks continuing to outpace ETH in the market.

The firm says that it expects Solana and the other top-performing layer-1 networks to maintain the upward trend over the next year, with price upsides buoyed by increased usage and capital inflows.

“These networks have thriving and fast-growing ecosystems that continuously drive the price performances of their native tokens,” the firm noted in the report.

A look at the individual returns for some of the smart contract platforms expected to continue outpacing ETH, we see Terra Luna (LUNA) is up 14,823% in 2021, with Fantom (FTM) and Solana (SOL) both seeing a 100x or more in price growth at 13,549% and 10,907% respectively.

While Ethereum’s native coin Ether (ETH) has jumped 460% in 2021 to outpace Bitcoin (BTC) at 73%, smart contract platforms Harmony (ONE) and Avalanche (AVAX) have returned 60 times over the year. Harmony is set to close the year with price gains of more than 6,400% for the year and Avalanche is up over 3,150%.

On Bitcoin vs. S&P 500 and gold

Bitcoin is up around 73% in the year, while the S&P 500 has also edged higher to record closes as it eyes a 28% return for the calendar year. Meanwhile gold, despite being the traditional inflation hedge, has negative returns at -7% in a year the inflation narrative has dominated sentiment.

Arcane Research says that Bitcoin will still beat both the S&P 500 and gold, having done so this year to notch a third straight year of outperformance against the stock market and the safe-haven asset.

But the researchers also note that “Bitcoin has increasingly behaved like a risk-on asset,” rather than the digital gold it’s been tagged to be. 

It means investors might therefore want to watch the stock market performance. Upward momentum for stocks could also see BTC price outperform, while “a red year” for the S&P 500 will see the cryptocurrency underperform, the analysts wrote. 

On altseason, NFTs and metaverse

Although Bitcoin’s run in 2021 has been astonishing, the bespoke research firm says the year pretty much belonged to altcoins. 

They note in their report summarizing the year in crypto that this “has been a flying year for most altcoins,” with capital inflows into the segment contributing to the dip in Bitcoin’s dominance in the first half of the year.

As noted earlier, ETH has outperformed BTC and so have most other altcoins. For example, Binance Coin (BNB) has gained over 1,340% in the year to see it beat both Bitcoin and Ethereum among the top three by market cap.

The firm is also bullish on NFTs and metaverse, noting that the two narratives dominated market engagements in 2021. However, they say that it’s the “NFT craze” that has resulted in spiking gas fees on the Ethereum network, with reactions being increased interest in layer-1 tokens.

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Introducing RichQuack, the latest hyper deflationary token: best places to buy RichQuack now

RichQuack is a hyper deflationary token that generates automatic liquidity, which in turn pays out static rewards to holders. It’s a new coin based on an interesting premise. Does it have promise? If you want to know more about it, including whether you should buy RichQuack, you’d be happy to know we wrote this article with you in mind.     

Top places to buy RichQuack now

As QUACK is such a new asset, it’s yet to be listed on major exchanges. You can still purchase QUACK using a DEX (decentralised exchange) though, which just means there are a few extra steps. To buy QUACK right now, follow these steps:

1. Buy BNB on a regulated exchange or broker, like Binance ›

We suggest Binance because it’s one of the world’s leading multi-asset trading platforms, an exchange and wallet all-in-one with some of the lowest fees in the industry. It’s also beginner-friendly, and has more payment methods available to users than any other available service.

2. Send your BNB to a compatible wallet like Trust Wallet or MetaMask

You’ll need to create your wallet, grab your address, and send your coins there.

3. Connect your wallet to the SushiSwap DEX

Head to SushiSwap, and ‚connect‘ your wallet to it.

4. You can now swap your BNB for QUACK

Now that you’re connected, you’ll be able to swap for 100s of coins including QUACK.

What is RichQuack?

RichQuack is a meme token on Binance Smart Chain, which aims to pay out rewards to holders by “frictionless yield generation”. Holders do not need to stake or wait for fees to be delivered. Fees are awarded by the smart contract and are immediately reflected in the holder’s balance. RichQuack is aimed at providing its holders with a chance to make money, by investing, building, holding and winning.

It wants to achieve that by building a community of people with a common goal that are ready to work hard and contribute towards it.

The protocol generates frictionless yield by applying a 12% fee for each transaction. 4% of each transaction is distributed to holders, and another 4% is provided to the QUACK/BNB liquidity pool. 2% goes to pump and burn wallets to create “an ever rising price floor”, and 2% goes to the marketing and developer wallet.

Should I buy RichQuack today?

While cryptos are highly volatile in and of themselves, meme coins are particularly risky to invest in. You can make a lot of money, but you can lose a lot just as easily.    

RichQuack price prediction

Wallet Investor advises against investing in this coin. According to their forecast system, QUACK is a bad long-term (1-year) investment. Its price will not change, which means an investment made now will be devalued in the future.  

RichQuack on social media

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Can Avalanche (AVAX) surge towards all-time highs of $147?

After a decisive slump in December, Avalanche (AVAX) and most cryptos have rebounded. Although momentum is starting to die down, we have seen some positive uptrend in recent weeks. But can AVAX sustain enough gains to surge beyond the $147 mark? This will take the coin to all-time highs. Well, before we get to the price action and analysis, here are some highlights:

  • Avalanche (AVAX) has in the last two days surpassed its 20-day EMA of $109, suggesting bullish momentum.

  • At the time of writing, the coin was trading for $113.74 albeit it was down about 3.68% in 24-hour intraday trading.

  • The Relative Strength Index or RSI is also looking bullish with a reading of around 57.

Data Source: Tradingview.com 

Avalanche (AVAX) – Price analysis and prediction

For most analysts watching AVAX, one of the key things in the price action was to see if the coin can surge beyond its 20-day EMA and sustain gains above that. Well, AVAX did exactly that two days ago and even though it has seen some losses over the last 24 hours, it is still way above the 20-day EMA. 

AVAX is however facing stiff resistance at $119.69. The coin had earlier tested that threshold but has since fallen. But as long as the price action is above the 20-day EMA, a surge above $119 is possible. It could also be the momentum trigger needed to push AVAX well above $147.

Should you buy Avalanche (AVAX)

Avalanche is one of the main competitors to Ethereum. It is today among the most promising blockchain projects. If you are a long-term investor, you should definitely have AVAX in your portfolio. The recent price action however makes it a tricky one for short-term plays. Unless the coin drops below its 20-day EMA, it is not primed for short-term speculative trades.

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Should you buy Chainlink (LINK) today? Price analysis and predictions below

Chainlink (LINK) is a smart contracts platform that ranks among the top 20 crypto projects in terms of market cap. At the start of December, LINK, its native token, saw a sizable correction that sent the price tumbling. But the coin was able to find sufficient support around $17 and consolidated there. It has since reported decent gains ever since. Here are the highlights:

  • At the time of writing, LINK was trading at $22.43, down 4% in intraday day trading.

  • Despite this, the coin is still up over the last 7 days, reporting gains of nearly 15% over that period.

  • However, LINK is facing major resistance around the $23 mark, something that could hamper a prolonged bull run.

Data Sources: Tradingview.com 

Chainlink (LINK) – Price analysis and prediction

After a decisive correction, there were fears among analysts that LINK could tumble well below $15. But despite this downtrend, we saw the coin find support and consolidation around $17. It stayed there for some time before breaking out towards $20. At the time of writing, the LINK was trading at $22.43. 

We are however seeing a lot of resistance around $23. LINK must surge beyond that and sustain those gains for any decent uptrend to take hold. It is however important to note that RSI readings suggest that LINK is overbought. For this reason, upward momentum could face severe bear pressure if current LINK holders decide to lock in their profits.

Should you buy Chainlink (LINK)

Chainlink (LINK) has always been a great investment for anyone looking to diversify their crypto portfolio. The long-term fundamentals are just too good to ignore and besides, LINK has also delivered decent returns this year. We think the price right now is still discounted and offers a good opportunity to get in on the action. There will however be significant short-term volatility.

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