Weekly Market Recap: Jan 11-15 Bitcoin Recovers, Polkadot Outperforms Ripple

On Monday

• From a 4.90% decline on the previous day Sunday, Bitcoin rose to an early morning intraday high of $41,399 before hitting reverse. It slid to a late intraday low of $35,260 after falling through support levels at $38,779 and $37,390.
• Ripple(XRP)'s investors have asked the court not to change their lawsuit against the company ripple to protect the investors. They asked the court to remove the claim that "the XPR owned by Petitioners constitute securities" to protect them.
• More than $2.4 billion worth of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin, ripple, etc., have been liquidated in different exchanges in a single day. The highest volume of the sale was on Binance, followed by Huobi, By, and BitMex.
• Dan Tapiero, a well-known investor, has said that ethereum is set to increase as many investors have shifted focus to it.

On Tuesday

• Paypal hit a record number on the volume of crypto payments made on the giant payments provider's platform. This was double of its previous volume record less than a week ago, on January 6th.
• After it declined by almost 30% to dip almost below the $900 level, the bulls defended it at the $900$-920. The price has risen by over 15% to trade above the $1,100 level.
• After its decline, Litecoin formed a short-term top near $185 before it's price started to drop. However, It recovered to trade above the $150 level.
• Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced that they hired Devraj Varadhan, a former Amazon executive, to lead its engineering team.
• Bakkt CEO Gavin Michael announced plans of adding new cryptocurrencies to their list. The company is set to soon go public by merging with SPAC Victory Park Capital.

On Wednesday

• Bitcoin saw one of its most significant rebounds yet after it made a comeback of 20% in just one day. 93% of the top Bitcoin whales added over 16% of Bitcoin holdings, which is about 334,000 Bitcoin, worth about $11 billion. Only 7% of the addresses transferred out of their wallets either to trade or to sell ever since Bitcoin started its correction.
• Ethereum got rejected from the $1,150 resistance zone after it's Tuesday rally. It finally traded at the $1,100 level.
• Stellar came back to the top ten listings of cryptocurrencies by market capitalization after it gained by 30% for its XLM token. Its market cap was estimated at $6.2 billion ahead of Chainlink (LINK) and Binance Coin (BNB).

On Thursday

• The price of BTC surged by more than $6,000 to get to $39,000 level within 24 hours.
• It seemed much more stable and was expected to trade above $40,000.
• Polkadot (DOT) saw a price surge of over 38% within 24 hours. The price gain pushed its price to an all-time $11.60.
• Its market capitalization of over $10 billion pushed it to the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap between XRP ($13.3 billion) and Litecoin ($9.6 billion).
• Ethereum led the gaining altcoins with a 9% surge to above $1,150. Litecoin also gained by 8%, followed by Cardano at 7.5%. Bitcoin Cash (6%) was back at the $500 price level, and Binance Coin (7%) traded over $40 again.
• Since decentralized exchanges running layer-two solutions launched four weeks ago, approximately $75 million has been traded across 26,600 transactions: Synthetix, a Defi protocol set to launch its Optimism layer-two staking upgrade called Castor today.

Friday (Today)

• Bitcoin price failed to stay above USD 38,500 and corrected lower.
• Ethereum could test the key USD 1,150 support zone, XRP is moving lower towards USD 0.280.
• IOST started a fresh surge and gained almost 60%.
• Bitcoin price struggled to continue higher above USD 39,200 and it started a downside correction.
• BTC broke the USD 38,500 support level and it is currently (13:00 UTC) trading below USD 38,000.
• It seems like the bears are aiming a test of the USD 36,500 support zone.

That's all for this week, folks. See you next week.