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After a tough August, Bitcoin has entered September on a bearish note and has continued to tumble.
The negative sentiment has spilled across the altcoin market with only a handful of projects in the green over the past week led by HNT and STRK.
Bitcoin started the week around the $58,500 mark and hit a weekly high of $59,522.
Since then the flagship cryptocurrency has continued to slide and dropped below the $57,000 on Thursday as concerns about the strength of the U.S. economy favored the bears.
On September 6, following the release of US Jobs report, BTC witnessed a brief rally towards the $57,000 but dropped past the $55,000 mark soon after, erasing the gains.
At the time of writing Bitcoin’s price was exchanging hands at $54,288, marking its lowest price since August 5.
As speculated by crypto analyst Captain Faibiik, if Bitcoin had managed to hold above the support at $55,000 there was a chance that the cryptocurrency could be moving towards the $68K-$69k resistance zone, however that hasn’t played out.
Crypto analyst Shardi B pointed out that Bitcoin is currently at a crucial support level around $54,000.
According to Shardi B if this level fails to hold, it could lead to a significant drop, possibly toward the next support around $46,000.
Yet, crypto analyst Elija expects the trend to reverse soon.
He shared a chart that shows a Cup and Handle pattern, which is typically a bullish formation.
This pattern suggests that, after a period of consolidation (the “cup”), Bitcoin may see a small dip (the “handle”) before a breakout to the upside.
Elija believes that, following some minor dips, Bitcoin is poised for a strong upward move, potentially leading to its biggest bull run yet.
At the time of writing, BTC was down 12.4% over the past week.
Meanwhile, altcoin market saw widespread losses, with HNT and STRK being the only two tokens in the top 100 to achieve double-digit gains over the past week.
Helium (HNT)
HNT was up 26.3% over the past week and has been a consistent performer over the past 30 days as well evidenced by a 77.5% rise.
Over the past seven days the altcoin has traded between $6.71 – $8.50.
Source: CoinMarketCap
However since Monday, the token hasn’t dropped below the $7 mark.
The Internet of Things focused blockchain network has experinced significant ecosystem growth which has fulled optimism with the token’s community.
Specifically, this growth is driven by a sharp increase in Helium Mobile’s subscriber base, which surpassed 112,000 users recently—a 300-fold increase over the past year.
Additionally, the number of active hotspots, which form the backbone of the Helium network, has expanded dramatically, enhancing the network’s global reach and utility.
Starknet (STRK)
STRK has jumped 15.5% on the 7 day chart, but most of those gains have been realised following a September 4 rally.
The altcoin’s $0.3457 – $0.4086 trading range suggests it has been a volatile week for the Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution, Starknet.
Source: CoinMarketCap
One of the key drivers of the rally include Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s recent unlocking of 1.268 million STRK tokens from Starknet’s Locked Token Grant contract to his wallet, which spurred a 9% price increase due to market confidence in his continued support.
Additionally, Starknet’s upcoming staking mechanism, set to launch following a community vote in October 2024, has generated excitement among token holders, while the recent “Bolt Upgrade” has improved the network’s speed and efficiency, attracting more developers and users.
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