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This Week’s Summary

• The cryptocurrency market looks to end the week at a total market capitalization of $1,070 trillion.
• Bitcoin moved down by nearly 2% after intense seesawing this week.
• Ethereum increased by almost 2% over the past seven days.
• XRP lost more than 1% in value this week.
• Almost all altcoins have been trading in the red, with a few exceptions.
• The DeFi sector decreased the total value of protocols (TVL) to around $45 billion.

Cryptocurrency Trends for the Week of Jan. 30-Feb. 5, 2023: Market Analysis and Performance

The cryptocurrency market shrunk temporarily after a bullish January. The new year brought spectacular and largely unexpected gains across the board. Therefore, a slight contraction was always in the cards for most assets. Fortunately, the losses have been less significant. This is visible in the market capitalization, which dropped by only $1 billion this week.

Bitcoin seesawed for most of the week between $23,000 and $24,000, touching the latter on Thursday. Despite reaching a five-month high, BTC did not last too long above $24,000. The king of cryptocurrencies soon lost ground to reach a comfortable support at $1,000 below. Recently, Bitcoin has been grappling by the skin of its teeth around the $23,000 level.

Ethereum was back to its gaining ways after a disappointing period last week. The second crypto in command moved up by nearly 2%, enough to keep it above the $1,650 level. Furthermore, it attached itself to the generally positive trend that most altcoins have followed since the beginning of the year.

Altcoins & DeFi

Almost all altcoins have been trading in the red, albeit some have been seen happily heading in the other direction. This has been the case for memecoins like Shiba Inu, up by 20%, and Dogecoin, up by over 3%. Elsewhere, BNB increased by 4% this week. Cardano, Polkadot, Polygon, and Litecoin all moved up by nearly 2%

Meanwhile, XRP moved down by 2%, like Avalanche. Also, Solana, Chainlink, and Monero all moved down by over 4% each. One of the best climbers this week was Fantom, with a spectacular 23% value boost.

The Metaverse sector has been in the same boat as the rest of the crypto market. For instance, Theta Network mpved down by 1%, Axie Infinity by 8%, and Decentraland by 6%. Meanwhile, ApeCoin decreased by 6% and ICP by almost 7%, just like The Sandbox.

The DeFi sector lost almost $1.5 billion from the total value in locked protocols (TVL), now at nearly $45.63 billion.

What’s in the News?

• Binance partnered with MasterCard to launch a crypto rewards card in Brazil.
• The authorities hit Silvergate Bank with a fraud probe over the FTX-Alameda relationship.
• Russia’s SberBank is ready to launch a DeFi Platform in May this year.
• An Oxford student has been jailed after stealing $2.4 million through a crypto scam.

Next Week’s Crypto Market Forecast

The cryptocurrency market contracted slightly this week. Nevertheless, the overall sentiment has remained positive, and the red values should soon change course to greener pastures. It will be interesting to see how this month pans out after a pleasantly surprising start to 2023.

About the Author

Born and raised in Romania, and currently living in Spain, the author discovered a knack for writing from a tender age, and even won some minor awards for fiction that didn't pay much.

Iulian became a content writer in 2011, and he is still doing it to some degree of success today. He is currently specialized in cryptocurrencies, technology, online marketing, and social media. In his free time, Iulian likes reading, traveling, and watching sports. His dream is to see Bitcoin reach $100,000 just so he can tell his friends “I told you so!”

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