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This Week’s Summary

• The cryptocurrency market looks to end the week at a total market capitalization of $1,827 trillion.
• Bitcoin (BITCOMP) is up by roughly 7% after a successful weekly run.
• Ethereum (ETH-X) has increased by over 20% over the past seven days.
• XRP (XRP-X) records a 6% value boost over the week.
• Dogecoin (DOGE-X), Polkadot, and Cardano (ADA-X) end the week with significant value boosts.
• The DeFi sector added almost $8 billion to the total value protocols (TVL).

Cryptocurrency Trends for the Week of Aug. 2 - Aug. 8, 2021: Performance and Analysis

The bulls continue to run the cryptocurrency market as the first week of August registers significant value boosts across the board. More so, the market capitalization increased by more than $170 billion to aim for the $2 trillion level once again.

Bitcoin is again taking all the headlines after a steady rise brought it above $45,000 only a couple of days ago. It’s worth noting that the primary cryptocurrency has increased by more than $15,000 in the past two weeks. As a result, the investors’ trust is peaking again and paving the way for a new, exciting bull run. Bitcoin has been recently trading at around $43,977.10.

Ethereum also increased substantially over the past seven days to trade well and above $3,000. One of the factors that influenced its surge was the latest Ethereum update, London, which went live on Wednesday, Aug. 4.

London’s release solved one of the network’s oldest issues: the users’ bidding war for block admission. The EIP-1559 update has replaced the old bidding procedure with a single base fee mechanism. This new value changes depending on how much the network is crowded. Also, it burns excess ETH to de-congest the protocol. Ethereum has been recently trading at around $3,031.96.

Ripple’s XRP is among the cryptocurrencies with the smallest value boosts. But in these trying times, every step ahead counts double. Following a 6% increase over the week, XRP has been recently trading at around $0.7832.

Most of the digital assets have traded in the green throughout the week. For instance, Cardano registered an 8% value boost to recently trade at around $1.44. Elsewhere, Polkadot is up by 12%, and Dogecoin has increased by 25%. Lastly, Binance Coin (BNB-X) is up by more than 3%. The DeFi sector gained roughly $8 billion in total value protocols (TVL), which stands at nearly $79.34 billion.

What’s in the News?

• Elrond has become the first blockchain in Europe to be carbon negative.
• Binance has added Hong Kong to its list of territories where residents are banned from trading derivatives after doing the same for Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands.

Next Week’s Market Forecast

This week has confirmed that the latest bullish sentiment will not go away that easily. As BTC aims again for the $50 thousand mark, Ethereum continues its improvement journey with radical and promising updates. In addition, other projects, such as Cardano, Polkadot, and even the meme-token, Dogecoin, are registering optimistic ascensions.

Nevertheless, after this year’s roller coaster, we must remain alert. For instance, US regulators are looking into new and drastic ways of taxing cryptocurrencies. At the moment, the debate in the US Senate rages on how strict the new rules should be. One side claims that the current laws leave room for tax evasion. The other camp warns that new regulations could be anti-technology and anti-innovation.

Depending on the outcome of this political battle, we should notice the scale of crypto credibility tilting one way or the other.