Disclaimer: As is standard practice in broadcasting market analysis in the cryptocurrency space, I need to begin by making clear that all discussions about price and market trends are my personal opinions, and NOT financial advice. I do not take responsibility for any investments except my own. I am not a financial adviser, and this is not financial advice.
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Now that we have that out of the way, lets delve into some technical analysis. In this post, and in weekly update posts for the foreseeable future, I will be giving my own opinions of the market in an educated, clear way hoping to inform investors like myself - a self-taught, small time part time investor with a 9-to-5 career - of MAJOR opportunities within the cryptocurrency space. For simplicity sake, today's post will just be a light review of a variety of Large, Medium, and Small Cap tokens/coins that are popular within the space and that are easier to understand for the everyday-investor.
LARGE CAP ANALYSIS:
If we're going to talk cryptocurrency, we need to start with the Grandfather of them all - yep, Bitcoin. Now in the last few months we've seen Bitcoin moonshot from its Summer 2017 valuation of 1k-2k USD all the way to its all time high in late December 2017 to 22k USD. While this was a momentous occasion for Bitcoin and crypto-traders alike, following its moonshot we have seen bitcoin undergo a healthy correction to almost half its all time high, down to 11k. So lets look at the chart, using data from Coinbase.
BTC/USD
As we see here, the almost 50% correction and consolidation is nearing its end. We have entered into, in my humble opinion, the last few hours or days of the Q1 2018 market correction - with Bitcoin's price action spiraling into the corner of a very strong, month long wedge in price action. If you're a bitcoin guy, this is the time to invest. Look for bitcoin to find support around a big even number - 15k USD looks to be the obvious spot. Invest accordingly, my friends. As we know from previous corrections, Bitcoin carries the market - so with bitcoin, we will most likely see major players like Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash enter into a short consolidation phase as "big momma" gains volume, but I believe these will also eventually breakout.
Why do I say so? Well, lets delve into the next chart ----> Ethereum
ETH/USD
Ethereum is about two weeks into an increasing support price wedge - a wedge defined by the "support" levels, or local minimums in price, increasing over the last two weeks span. With all things considered, this is a VERY bullish trend when speaking about appreciable assets. It cues us, investors, onto overarching market opinions, as the "support" levels are increasing. This can be thought of like the price of any asset in demand - as demand increases, and supply stays relatively constant, the minimum price investors within the market feel is reasonable to pay begins to increase.
Look for Ethereum to have a LARGE breakout around the first week in February 2018. $1400 USD is a natural spot to look for support, but should ETH find support and break through the $1400 USD level, there is little stopping it from reaching its "Over-Exuberance" price of $1800 USD. Remember, previous resistance usually turns into support.
Not excited enough yet? We'll lets look at another Large Cap coin ------> Litecoin.
LTC/USD
After hitting an all time high in early January, Litecoin entered a very significant correction where the world markets saw price action stay within a hefty Depreciating Price Channel highlighted in Red. During this time, Litecoin prices corrected to ALMOST 50% of the All-Time-High posted just weeks before. When we see major players within the market undergo nearly 50% reductions, do not be overwhelmed with fear! These types of trends are VERY HEALTHY for markets such as this crypto-crazed market. Clearly, as seen here once again, over-exuberance dominated the market, as volumes flooded in and causes a massive run up, followed by a mass-consolidation within the market.
The indicators with this chart are not as strong as the previous major players, and while I do not want to speculate heavily on reasons as to why (maybe Charlie Lee could give us some insight) I will say that assuming market conditions remain consistent, watching LTC hit around $250 USD is not far-fetched - it was valued over 300$ at the peak of market exuberance in early January.
This concludes my Large Cap analysis! If you enjoyed the first part of this blog, PLEASE resteem and upvote! Follow my page for more content in the following weeks as we realize these price actions!
MEDIUM CAP ANALYSIS:
With major players showing signs of gains, its only natural to assume medium players within the market follow suit. I've selected a few proven, medium cap coins and tokens here to show why I am VERY bullish on the current state of the market. As i see it now, ALL of these coins that will be discussed in the following sections are "Primed and Ready to EXPLODE" - but hey, thats just my opinion. MAKE SURE to do your own price action analysis to confirm or deny my predictions.
#1 Cardano (ADA)
While the Cardano project saw an unprecedented price run during the last bull market trend (December 2017), its actual substance in terms of deliverable product to the blockchain market is little to none. As of right now, they basically have a functioning wallet available to the public, while they test their main net and nodes behind the scenes.
Regardless, I think Cadano has an all-star team of bright minds working tirelessly behind the scenes to deliver to their investor base. For large market players I like to use USD comparisons, but for medium & small cap assets, its more valuable to compare them to the large players within the market... Why you ask? Well, should these coins perform worse than the large cap assets, it makes more sense just to invest in those larger coins. However, if we begin to draw comparisons to larger coins and find these coins performing better than their "bigger brothers and sisters," then that would justify a confidence investment into their Their chart is very promising - so lets take a look.
ADA/BTC
With price action spiraling to the corner of a month-long wedge in price action, where we've seen the price fluctuate between the 7500 & 5000 Satoshi level ($1.20-$0.55), all signs point to an eventual breakout to the upside. Now, with the medium cap coins and tokens, I am going to refrain from predicting price levels - as no one really can predict accurately the value of these blossoming companies. What I will offer, for anyone wondering, is that Cardano's vision for the future of cryptocurrency makes its coin one of the most promising Long Term Investment options within the current crypto space. Boasting a market valuation of approximately $16B USD, and over 25 Billion coins in circulation, Cardano has poised itself to become a Large Cap opportunity with Medium Cap entry pricepoints. I personally have high hopes for this project. Its founder, Charles Hoskins, is very active in growing the community and often participates in AMA's online and in Live chats on youtube with investors looking for a more in-depth look at the behind the scenes operations. Take a look at ADA if you want to "set it and forget it" when it comes to cryptocurrency investment - I could see this becoming a MAJOR player by 2019.
#2 Stellar Lumen (XLM)
A hardfork of Ripple - Stellar with its coin, the Lumen - is just beginning to show its major potential in the crypto-investment space. Lets take a look at its price action over the last month.
XLM/BTC
As we can see from the chart, another price wedge - but lets not get carried away. Although promising, I chose XLM to bring about an important point in investing: choosing your entry and exit points. While its true that XLM has massive potential in 2018, its coin XLM recently realized a breakout from its month long price wedge a few days prior to my writing of this blogpost. And while this is still a promising investment in the medium to long term, I would heed caution investing at this time - as you may be buying at a highpoint, and therefore a less-than-intelligent entry point. More to my point, with its recent positive movement in price action XLM could very well be entering a consolidation phase where some buyers who smartly made investments during the large correction period may very well sell some of their positions in order to lock in profits. If this occurs, it will likely result in a small correction. As an investor looking to make your first investment into Stellar Lumens, patience may reap you rewards, as XLM will likely drop in price over the nex few days before once again finding support and gaining a bullish trend. Look for XLM to hover around its current price until JUST after bitcoin finds its first consolidation phase in mid-February. A smart buyer would look around the 4600 Satoshi level, with anything under 4800 satoshi's being a very high-value trade.
Liking what we see so far guys? Me too! February will be a big month for crypto! Remember - buy the dips, and dont get caught up in the FOMO or Hype! Always let calmer and cooler heads prevail.
#3 ICON (ICX)
ICON, South Korea's first blockchain, has had an impressive year up to this point. It has gained almost 400% in value since appearing on Binance in mid-December, but will this bullish trend last? Lets take a look at our most recent price data and see if we can find some promising trends.
ICX/BTC
If you have caught-up to the theme of this post, then you may have guessed it right. Yet another promising chart with bullish indicators Alllllll over it. Increasing Support Wedge in Price Action, Solid Appreciating Channel throughout the prior month or two. Guys, this has to be one of my favorite charts AND favorite projects within the crypto-space, with hoardes of new partnerships popping up every month it seems. Ill be honest if you guys were wondering - I have a HUGE position in ICX, which is why this chart makes me happy and why I chose to highlight it here today. With no signs of stopping, ICON is poised to become a dominant Medium Cap Blockchain within Q1 & Q2 2018. The team behind it is star studded, with Chinese Forbes 30-Under-30 personalities backing its tech as major investors and partnerships with other well-done emerging projects in the Blockchain industry. Just check out this info-graphic below!! Again, while I dont like putting dollar amounts of Medium & Small cap coins, I will go out on a limb and say that ICON still has about a 10x run over its lifetime. For a new investor, this is a slam dunk. Solid tech, functional product, amazing team and promising partnerships!
That does it for the Medium Cap Coins & Tokens, but I'm not done! Are you guys out here, hungry to find the next big thing? While investing in currencies is promising, some of the largest gains to be had out in the crypto-space come from companies looking to become household commodities once mas-adoption becomes a reality! What trends to I look for in the "Next Big Thing?" Well, Ill tell you. Think about scalability and operability. Think about companies thats products, no matter what, can be used by most if not ALL of the blockchain applications currently in development. Think about "all-in-one, one-stop-shop" type blockchain projects that can be applied to any area of the crypto space. When I bring those details into the forefront of my mind, three projects come to mind as slam dunk sleepers. These are my small cap, huge upside choices.
SMALL CAP ANALYSIS
#1 Simple Token (OST)
For the intro to OST, im just going to let the companies catchphrase, which can be found on their website, speak for itself. Cant' really do a better job than they already have, introduction-wise.
"The Simple Token Solution: Launch your own Branded Tokens and turn your business into a dynamic ecosystem. The OpenST protocol enables any business to stake Simple Tokens against minting their own Branded Tokens. The Simple Token Software-as-a-Service gives you the tools to manage, customize, and analyze your token economy"
Have business or thinking about creating one? Want to be at the forefront of blockchain adoption within your niche or industry? Well, I think SimpleToken is something you need to look into. Heres why:
Other than the analytics pointing to an eventual breakout, Simple Token fills two VERY important niche's within the crypto-space and checks off all my boxes for an undervalued, sleeping giant. Scalability & Mass-Adoption. As cryptocurrencies begin to be brought into the proverbial "light" in terms of adoption & consumer-comfort, there needs to be a simple, easy, yet sensible path for companies to take in order to get them into the blockchain and primed for success. As this community has already experienced, developing one's own block chain and subsequently supporting said blockchain with updates in order to provide a functioning scalable product, is expensive & time-consuming - to say the least. Simple Token comes in with a way to function within the blockchain without having to allocate funds towards the upkeep and adoption of one's own proprietary blockchain. This idea solves the glaring problem of bringing in software guru's and keeps overhead in companies that just couldnt afford it, to a minimum.
Look for OST to breakout and find support at an All Time High in the month of February. Get in now, or forever hold your peace.
#2 0x (ZRX)
0x, the development team that created and introduced the Zero X Protocol, is attempting to do the glaringly obvious, but hyper-difficult - make swapping between any two, un-paired, unequivocally-priced a quick, scalable, and secure reality. By introducing the Zero X Protocol, the first protocol proven to successfully perform an "atomic swap", they have done so. And, for some reason, have flown under the radar for some time. Lets dive into some technical analysis...
ZRX took a significant hit during the early January market correction, but has since shown some resiliency. With a circulating supply of just over 500 million, its price is somewhat capped due to such a large amount of coins being held and traded - but don't overlook this project. Having tested and completed an atomic swap, ZRX stands to be a formidable force in the crypto-sphere. Being a day trader myself, its not hard to see the value in a coin that can be used to perform atomic swaps across blockchains. Every time I need to buy something in a Bitcoin market but have an ERC-20 token, I have to manually sell into ETH, buy BTC, and then swap for my desired token. All those actions, and more, could be accomplished using the Zero X Protocol (in theory). Anything that saves time, mitigates "operator" or "trader" error and also upholds the desired level of security, in my humble opinion, is something that high value should be placed upon.
Look for ZRX to continue to report on its testing and partnerships - should ZRX become the "standard" in atomic swaps, I could see ZRX becoming a Medium to Large Cap market player by 2019.
#3 Bread (BRD)
Bread has a mission to become the first, all-in-one, mobile wallet for Cryptocurrencies supported on both major mobile phone platforms - Android & iOS. With a functioning wallet already on the Appstore in both platforms, Bread Token as positioned itself as a market leader and pioneer in the ERC-20 token space as well as the all-in-one mobile wallet service provider. Lets take a look at its recent price action.
BRD/BTC
BRD has recently broke out from a significant price consolidation, outlined in grey, where markets saw the coin fall from its all time high of ~20k satoshi's to a low of approximately 10k satoshi's during the significant market correction, which many suppose was due to a large amount of fear, uncertainty and doubt within Asian markets after South Korean law enforcement shut down three major exchanges, after which multiple South Korean Government officials were accused of insider trading when large amounts of cryptocurrencies were found to be have been dumped just before the executive actions performed within South Korea (price action circled in Red).
Look for BRD to announce testing and confirmation of its ERC-20 wallet beta, and once public, the information to cause a large spike in volumes associated with the BRD token.
Well, folks! That does it for my weekly update in cryptocurrencies. I hope the photographic data and market-trend analysis has helped you put in to perspective the upcoming trends within the crypto-space, and I also hope some of you have shifted your thinking to try and find those "market leading ideas" which can bring large value to your investment.
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