Bitcoin was in recovery mode earlier today as the index rose above $58k level to get to around weekly highs. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was under pressure from the bears for most of the last week but is now looking towards the $60k resistance. Altcoins also rose earlier today but the overall performance was quite mixed. More on that later on. 

In other news, amid the global spread of the new Omicron variant of the Coronavirus disease, markets took a big tumble before making some recovery on Monday. However, in the midst, a digital currency project sharing the new variant’s name Omicron has risen more than 1,000% in the last two days, possibly because of meme inventors and Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) dynamics. What is interesting is that the token Omicron (OMIC) was launched less than a month ago and has reaped big benefits as the name's relevance was spotted. The token rose from around $65 on Saturday to as high as $680 at one point earlier today before dipping back below $400 close to press time. 

Also, big US investor Microstrategy has purchased a massive 7,002 BTC during the recent price decrease. Michael Saylor, the CEO of the company announced this move on Twitter. More on that later on.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has officially announced that he will be stepping down from his role as the CEO of the social media giant. The billionaire CEO and co-founder of the popular microblogging website co-founded it back in 2006 by Dorsey and two other co-founders. There are many predictions floating around the internet on what Dorsey will like to do after stepping down as CEO. Some believe that he will dedicate his efforts towards the crypto space through his Square startup, which is a financial services company. Dorsey is a well-known pro-Bitcoin CEO and it appears as if he will pursue this different line of work in the near future. 

The Bitcoin transaction fees are down 50% from highs recorded back in April this year. The cryptocurrency network’s average fees are now less than $2 on average despite rising to $4.40 back 7 months ago. The cryptocurrency, however, is faring way better than Ethereum and many other digital currencies whose fees keep on rising with time with the latter trying hard but not able to control them till now. 

Binance has resumed Dogecoin withdrawals after a few issues forced it to halt them for as much as 17 days. The cryptocurrency exchange has a history of having issues especially when wallets undergo planned upgrades but according to them, the transactions have resumed now. 

Bitcoin Rises Above $58k

Bitcoin rose strongly earlier today to above $58k right before press time. The cryptocurrency, however, is still facing big hurdles in the immediate future and it needs to overcome them to resume the long-term bull run.

The last 24 hours started with the cryptocurrency at around $53.5k. It immediately began to rise from the very start. It went above $57k around midnight and has largely stayed there ever since. At 6 PM in the evening, Bitcoin began to rise once again and is now hovering above $58k. 

Going forward, the next obvious price resistance going forward is the $60k level. The cryptocurrency has stayed below for the large part of the last 2 weeks despite several attempts to overcome it. Now, this is the latest move to do it. Long-term stats are still very strong for the cryptocurrency but the bulls have to overcome $60k to have any chance of resumption of the bull run.

The total market capitalization of Bitcoin was around $1.109 trillion at press time and its share of the proceedings were 42.72%.

Altcoins Post Gains

Other cryptocurrencies aka altcoins posted recoveries of their own at the start of the day. Ethereum (ETH, 8%), Solana (SOL, 11.5%), Cardano (ADA, 10%), Polkadot (DOT, 10%), Dogecoin (DOGE, 10%), Avalanche (AVAX, 11%), Shiba Inu (SHIBA, 16%), Terra (LUNA, 8%), Litecoin (LTC, 10%) and Polygon (MATIC, 12%) all posted big gains.

In Other News…..

Microstrategy Purchase $414 million of more Bitcoin

Michael Saylor, the CEO of Microstrategy has announced that he has bought 7,002 more Bitcoin at an average price of $59k which comes out to be a massive $414 million. What is interesting is that Saylor purchased these coins more than a week ago when the index was around $59k. After that, BTC has largely trended downwards, apart from the sudden appreciation we saw earlier today. 

Microstrategy is now one of the biggest holders of BTC around with a total hoardings of 121,044 BTC or more than $7 billion in Bitcoin. The company’s average price is around $29,400 and thus it seems like it is growing nicely overall. The company is also looking to sell stocks to buy more Bitcoin which is risky but it is being compared to a kind of stock buyback that will keep increasing the worth of the leftover shares especially as Bitcoin reaches new highs in the near future.

We are currently entering a very exciting period on the global cryptocurrency market, and in the altcoin world especially. Regulatory concerns are making some investors bearish, but bulls are still holding strong and nobody can say for sure whether the end of the year will bring us spectacular pump or a tremendous slump down.

The overall situation in the blockchain ecosystem is clearly reflected on the altcoin market: while some alternative currencies have grown massively over the past week, some are experiencing significant problems. Let’s take a look at some of the biggest winners and biggest losers of the last 7 days!

Little Known Gaming Token GALA Becomes the Best Performing Asset of the Week by Far

Although the company Gala Games has been around since 2019, up until now almost nobody has heard about its token GALA, which was launched in 2020. Quite unexpectedly, GALA has become the best performing major crypto asset of the past week, massively surpassing all other gaming and metaverse related coins and tokens on the market.

The GALA token has appreciated in price by over 211% in the last 7 days, which is a spectacular result. To put things in perspective, Zcash, the second best performing asset of the week, has only increased in price by 83%.

As is often the case with altcoins, the reasons for GALA’s sudden spike are not fully clear. Although the GALA token has been listed on some major exchanges such as Coinbase, FTX and Huobi Global not that long ago, there were no announcement or development which would explain why the token has performed so much better than competing gaming-related assets like Decentraland (LAND), The Sandbox (SAND) or Axie Infinity (AXIE), which have made much lesser gains.

Remember Zcash? Long Forgotten Privacy Coin Comes Back To Rally by Over 83% In a Week

Zcash (ZEC), the second-best performing coin of the week, is perhaps even more surprising than the unexpected number one that is GALA. For the most part, Zcash looks like a relic of a bygone era, but somehow it has managed to appreciate in price by over 83% over the past 7 days.

Launched in 2016, Zcash is one of the oldest assets on the list of top 100 largest coins by market capitalization. Like many other privacy coins created at the time, ZEC was aiming to solve the privacy issues troubling popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Although many privacy coins were created, the only one to achieve actual adoption was Monero (XMR), which has become the favourite cryptocurrency of darknet vendors and ransomware attackers. However, if we look at the market capitalization of Zcash and Monero, ZEC might surpass its much more popular competitor in value very soon, as Monero’s market cap is now larger than ZEC’s by less than $1 Billion.

Shiba Inu In a Downfall - Is the “DOGE killer” Dead Already?

For a couple weeks, Shiba Inu was the most popular altcoin in the blockchain ecosystem. At the height of its popularity, SHIB even managed to briefly surpass Dogecoin, its predecessor and greatest competitor. However, ever since reaching its all-time high of $0.00008845 a month ago, the SHIB price has been steadily declining. Recently, the price plummeted to $0.00003611, which is the lowest it has been in over a month, and comes dangerously close to levels from before October's massive pump.

Even the fact that the number of Shiba Inu wallets has just surpassed 1 million did nothing to help revive SHIB’s price. It seems that the main problem of SHIB is still the fact that it’s a token with zero utility, with most of the market cap locked in less than 10 wallets.

The fact that Shiba Inu looks like a rug pull just waiting to happen have caused many exchanges and trading platforms to refuse listing SHIB, citing safety concerns as the reason. Since the attention of meme tokens enthusiasts is usually short-lived and they are always on the lookout for new projects, it might be likely that Shiba Inu’s days of glory are already over.

Cardano and Tron Delisted From eToro Amid Regulatory Concerns

The investors of Cardano (ADA) and Tron (TRX) might have some reasons to worry. The Israel-based eToro, one of the most popular trading platforms in the world, has just announced that it will remove the ability to trade Cardano and Tron for some of its users.

Although the two cryptocurrencies will not be delisted completely for now, and the access to them will only be removed from US-based users of the platform, the prices of both ADA and TRX have fallen sharply. Meanwhile, eToro representatives have not given a clear reason for the delisting, citing “business-related considerations in the evolving regulatory environment” as the cause for restricting the access to Cardano and Tron.

Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, has announced that his country has drilled an additional five million USD into Bitcoin (BTC). In a Tweet, Bukele announced the addition of 100 BTCs into the country’s Bitcoin bags. The purchase coincided with BTC’s price dropping below $54K on Friday.

Notably, the price dip was also witnessed in other traditional markets such as stocks, with observers attributing the global drop across sectors to fears of a new coronavirus variant.

According to analysts, the “variant is out-competing others *far* faster than” previous variants such as Beta and Delta.

While observing that the leading cryptocurrency’s price is 20 percent below its all-time high of $69K, Bukele noted the 100 BTCs were “acquired with a discount.” Since the Central American country adopted Bitcoin as legal tender in September, it has been buying BTC during price slumps.

The Salvadoran president ignited the Bitcoin buying spree with 200 BTC coins on September 7. Subsequent purchases have netted El Salvador more than 1,200 Bitcoins.

El Salvador Now Holds Over 1,200 BTCs Worth More Than $65 Million

At the current exchange rate of $54,422, the country’s Bitcoin stash is worth more than 65 million USD. El Salvador’s Bitcoin purchases have also been accompanied by several initiatives to increase Bitcoin adoption in the Central American nation.

For example, Bukele recently revealed plans to construct Bitcoin City funded by BTC bonds worth one billion USD.

Also, Bukele announced the construction of Bitcoin Schools that would offer cryptocurrency education to locals. While the Salvadoran president’s Bitcoin initiatives appealed to BTC supporters, anti-BTC Salvadorans have in the past taken to the streets to protest the crypto moves.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has also been against El Salvador adopting Bitcoin as legal tender.

This week, the IMF said that the leading cryptocurrency “should not be used as a legal tender” because its “high price volatility” threatens financial integrity, stability, and “consumer protection.”

According to the IMF, the Central American country should review its Bitcoin law and reduce its “scope.” It added that El Salvador needs to put stricter rules to govern “the new payment ecosystem.”

China Shuts Down Crypto News Websites, Mining Pools Report Connectivity Problems

Interestingly, the comments came a day after Bukele disclosed plans to launch Bitcoin City. According to the Salvadoran president, IMF’s “analysis” of El Salvador “is interesting. “

As the Central American country sets its eyes on the Bitcoin price dip, China is actualizing its warning over cryptocurrency news outlets and Bitcoin mining pools.

ChainNews, a leading crypto news website in China, has bowed to regulatory pressure. Feng Liu, its co-founder, had hinted about the closure through his WeChat moments.

On November 15, ChainNews said it would post news on its official Twitter and Telegram outlets as the site undergoes maintenance for up to 10 hours.

However, on November 17, the site was still down. Last week, other Chinese-based crypto news and information outlets such as Odaily and Block123 also went dark.

Speaking to Coindesk, Odaily said it’s in the process of launching a new platform with a new URL. The closure of crypto news websites comes roughly two months after the country’s central bank, The People’s Bank of China, released a list of prohibited cryptocurrency activities.

It’s a DNS Pollution, but a VPN Can Work

A translated section of the warning noted that “competent authorities of network information shall promptly shut down internet applications such as websites, mobile applications, and small programs that carry out virtual currency-related business activities.”

Apart from news sites, China recently said that it’s working on making it harder for crypto miners to conduct their businesses in the country. Among the proposals is to increase electricity costs. However, the measures may have gone beyond energy costs.

For example, on November 26, several leading Bitcoin mining pools started reporting connectivity issues. Some of them include F2pool, ViaBTC, and Binance Pool.

An analysis has pointed to a “pollution” in the pools’ DNS (domain name system). Interestingly, the DNS pollution seems only to affect Chinese miners. According to a former executive at one of the affected crypto mining pools, Chinese regulators are likely to have a hand in the service disruption.

Most Bitcoin pools have said that they’ll be winding down their Chinese operations before year-end. In the meantime, some have advised users to adjust their DNS or use a virtual private network or VPN to beat the set restrictions.

Cardo ADA is the 5th most popular cryptocurrency, hitting its all-time high at $3.1 in early September 2021, with the launch of its smart contracts. Since then, it has been in corrections. Cardano (ADA), which has risen to become the world's sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, had an optimistic 2021 forecast, but it was unable to maintain the September highs. In late October, it lost 15% of its value in one day due to a pre-Halloween fright.

Like other prominent cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH), ADA has struggled to gain traction, which has lately plummeted from all-time highs. By November 9, it had risen to $2.28, only to fall back to $1.70 on November 18. Bears failed to push the price further below. As Cardano's on-chain activity has skyrocketed, the daily transaction volume briefly overtook the second-largest cryptocurrency Ethereum on Friday, November 19, 2021. At the AIBC gaming convention, Cardano was recently honoured as the best DeFi project.

Key Takeaways

Here are the key takeaways:

• Analysts believe that Cardano will recover the recent drop below $2.
• Pointing a Metaverse by the founder Charles Hoskinson could be a big factor for the price to fall further.
• Cardano (ADA) secures the #5 spot on top cryptocurrencies, with a price of $1.77, market cap of $59,550,121,211, 24h volume of $1,464,894,647 and circulations supply of 33,313,246,915 ADA (74.03%).
• ADA was recognised as the best DeFi project at the AIBC summit.

What is Cardano (ADA)

Cardano is a blockchain network with its mainnet. Furthermore, the crypto may do anything it thought was essential for the network with no limitations. Notably, Cardano was built by the Input-Output Hong Kong corporation (IOHK) when it comes to platform development. Furthermore, the Cardano network intends to provide a platform for developers to implement smart contracts and decentralised apps. Cardano just updated to Goguen mainnet, a blockchain platform that provides token lock network functionality. Daedalus is the company's own crypto wallet where users can keep their coins safely.

Technicals of ADA

Cardano is being developed in five stages in order to provide a development platform. This platform will have a multi-asset ledger and verifiable smart contracts for decentralised apps (DApps). Here are the five stages:

1.     Foundation os Cardano ADA

Cardano's Phase 1 or Byron was the initial release for the general public in September 2017. In addition, the Daedalus desktop wallet and the ADA cryptocurrency were introduced by the business.

2.     Decentralization

In the second step, anybody might participate in the Cardano transaction verification process, making it decentralised. Shelley will start in June 2020.

3.     Smart Contracts

Smart contracts and decentralised apps will be available in Cardano's third era. The Alonzo update launch illustrates the Cardano Goguen era's plan. The Alonzo update was released in August 2021.

4.     Scaling

Basho intends to build sidechains for Cardano in order to increase its scalability even more. Therefore, the main blockchain will be divided into several smaller chains known as shards.

5.     Governance

Cardano's long-term ambition is to create an autonomous system that is not dependent on its parent firm, IOHK. Voltaire will unveil a full-fledged governance system in the next weeks, allowing users to vote on new features. Cardano will be able to construct a genuinely decentralised platform after the first phase is done.

Cardano (ADA) Price Analysis 2021

Cardano (ADA) is currently sitting on the number 5 top cryptocurrencies as of November 23, 2021.

Most analysts have bullish sentiment for Cardano (ADA) at this time. However, the correction isn't over in others' opinion, and a drop to $1.50 is imminent. That being said, let's break down Cardano's daily and weekly chart to see what are the major possibilities in terms of technical analysis.

Weekly Chart Breakdown of Cardano (ADA)

Source: TradingView

If we look at the weekly chart of Cardano/TetherUS, we can see that the price is currently in a channel after touching $1.71 support. Moreover, at this point, we can also see the bullish divergence with the relative strength index, which also indicates a bull market strongly. Weekly market sentiment seems bullish at the moment, and if the buyers can hold above $1.71 support, we might see a rally towards the all-time high of $3.1.

On the other hand, if the price breaks below the channel support, we might see $1.50, which is expected to be the last support (on daily) for it, before $1.0.

Daily Chart Breakdown of Cardano (ADA)

Source: TradingView

If we look at the daily chart, the price is in a perfect rising channel. A double bottom around $1.7 horizontal and channel support, which strongly indicates a rally towards $2.3 and a break above $2.3, will obviously result in the rally towards all times high $3.1.

On the other hand, a break below might result in a move towards $1.5, which is the next daily support.

Market sentiment for Cardano remains bullish at this point. If the fundamentals align with the technical, we might see a strong rally towards $4 in 2022.

Conclusion

Despite Cardano's price decline, this is not the endgame since price corrections are unavoidable for any cryptocurrency. Cardano would hopefully endure in order to restore its full performance and return to the top.