Bitcoin Higher and Higher

Bitcoin's climb continues with the seventh consecutive week on the rise. Ethereum also redeems itself by returning over $500, the highest in the last two years.

If Bitcoin were to maintain the current levels until Sunday (area $18,750 ref. 20/11/2020 at 6:00 PM CET) or in any case maintain prices above 16,500 USD, it would extend the consecutive series of positive weekly closures to seven, matching the record set between mid-March and the end of April.

Unlike the previous series, this time the positive weekly closings are accompanied by a sequence of higher minimums and maximums. In the past, only twice (October/November 2013 - April/June 2017) BTC has managed to do better with such a structure by stopping at eight consecutive weeks on both occasions, the all-time record. In both previous phases, the performance calculated in percentage exceeded the current performance (+70%) but with a lower gain if calculated on the price.

Should the price end at current levels, or higher, in order to find a better week than the current one, with an increase of more than 2,600 dollars, it is necessary to go back to the first two weeks of December 2017. Both times the weekly gain was close to $4,000. And what is happening in this period inevitably brings the memory back to the end of 2017 when the price of Bitcoin for the first time exceeded 19,000 USD. But if the comparison between yesterday and today based only on price analysis can find some similarities, the two periods are definitely different.

The financial and social-historical phase is different, as well as the reasons that are supporting the current rise of the Bitcoin prices. The rise of 2017 can be defined choral for the entire cryptocurrency sector characterized by the ICO (Initial Coin Offering) mania and headed by Ethereum that with a stellar performance (+9.100% YTD) eclipsed that of the Bitcoin (+1.620% YTD). At the beginning of January 2018, the price of Ethereum flew over 1,400 USD, a few weeks after the historical record of Bitcoin at one step from 20,000 USD in mid-December 2017.

Comparing the current prices with those of that time, there's an immediate difference that stands out, characterizing the current phase with Bitcoin that is about to end the second week with the highest closing ever, one step away from the historical record (-7%), while Ethereum seems to benefit only partially from the Bitcoin effect remaining in the 500 USD area, 65% away from the records of early 2018.

The comparison becomes even more merciless with the other high-ranking altcoins. With the exception of Chainlink (LINK) and Binance Coin (BNB), both just under 30% away from the highs recorded during the last year (August 2020 for LINK and June 2019 for BNB), for most of them the distance from the highs at the end of 2017/start 2018 is over 75%. The capitalization data also show two different phases.

In the last few hours, the total capitalization has exceeded $520 billion, the highest peak since the end of January 2018. Thanks to Bitcoin, which capitalizes over $343 billion, $8 billion more than the previous record set in mid-December 2017, accounting for 66% of the entire market. By eliminating Bitcoin from the total, the capitalization of the rest of the industry - including Ethereum - is just over $177 billion, levels of mid-June 2018. A difference of more than $370 billion from the record $555 billion recorded during the first week of January 2018.

Top Crypto from ATH

DeFi - Decentralized Finance

The week saw an important event for the Uniswap DEX giant: the end of rewards to providers of liquidity (LPs) to the protocol. The UNI token was launched on September 16th, airdropping 400 UNI to all users who had previously used the decentralized exchange.

A move that destabilized the vampire SushiSwap launched a few days earlier, at the end of August, which addressed some of the shortcomings of the original Uniswap project by encouraging users to deposit Uniswap LP tokens with greater rewards, draining almost $1.5 billion in liquidity from Uniswap to SushiSwap in a few hours. With the activation of the V2 version of Uniswap, users have returned to provide liquidity to the project, raising the TVL (total value locked) from less than $1 billion on September 16th, to over $3 billion last Saturday, November 14th, the highest figure collected so far by a decentralized financial project.

With the end of the rewards offered by Uniswap, users in search of returns have withdrawn their collateral by moving it to other protocols that are currently enjoying the arrival of users. This will last at least until the first week of December when the Uniswap community will conclude the governance vote to approve the next incentive plan.

Since last week, trading volumes on decentralized exchanges (DEX) have grown by more than 30% from $3.1 billion to $4.1 billion.

• This growth has brought the trading volume on Uniswap to over $2.3 billion (+ $330 million), maintaining its leadership position among the DEXs used for trading.

• A major increase was recorded by Curve, the second DEX in terms of use and popularity among traders, which rose from $390 million to over $814 million (+ $424 million).

• SushiSwap also saw an increase of over $220 million since last week.

This activity brings Uniswap's market share down from 63% to 56%, while both Curve (19%) and Sushiswap (12%) are gaining strength.

DEXes Volume Last 7 Days

In these hours the total value locked calculated in dollars breaks through the $14 billion wall for the first time. This is due to the price of Ethereum, which is returning to over $500 for the first time since June 2018, in spite of the fact that ETH deposits fell by 1.2 million compared to last week's levels. This is largely attributable to the migration of Uniswap's liquidity, for the reasons described above.

Meanwhile, with over 170,000 BTC, the Bitcoin tokenized using the ERC-20 standard remains solid. WBTC gains strength with more than 124,200 BTC minted, equivalent to $2.260 billion. Interesting fact: the total of tokenized Bitcoin is currently 0.72% of the more than 18.6 million mined Bitcoin, equal to 4.7% of Ethereum's total market cap.   

Total Value Locked in DeFi

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5 Hottest DeFi News of the week

• Polkadot has the higher staking value

• DEX Aggregator raised 3.1 million from Coinbase

• DeFi tokens are providing hefty double-digit gains

• DeFi is coming on Qtum

• Deutsche Bank: bitcoin used against inflation

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Technical Analysis

by Federico Izzi

Bitcoin (BTC)

Bitcoin continues to amaze despite the fact that last week there were already technical signs of oversold in the short term. Instead, the price continues to rise to a record-breaking level at the end of 2017.

With a weekly performance that at Friday afternoon levels - area 18,750 USD (6:00 PM UTC) - is close to 18%, the best in the last year and a half, with a gain of over 2,500 dollars. Technically the bullish phase is one step away from the last bullish target which coincides with the 2017 high, area $19,890.

For over two weeks the Fear & Greed index has been fluctuating at the highest level in the last three years, in area 90. It shows that the bullish phase that has been accompanying the rise for over two months is supported by a solid sentiment reinforced by the narrative that Bitcoin is increasingly becoming an asset considered among the top, if not the best, to hedge against the current phase of economic uncertainty and inflation risks.

Technically, it is important to keep steady nerves and not to get caught up in the euphoria that could become irrational if prices go beyond historical highs. As already written in previous reports, an exponential bullish phase like the current one risks leaving weak support in the event of an aggressive reversal. 16,500 and 15,800 are the first levels to be monitored in the event of a fall, between 10% and 15% from Friday's levels, allowing speculation a wide margin of manoeuvre. A bearish extension beyond 15,500 would trigger a first alarm on the current medium-long term bullish structure.

BTC Chart

The sharp rise that continued during the week cancelled the first structures set up by operators in options at the beginning of the week between 17,000 and 17,500 USD. Levels moving between 19,100 and 19,650 USD during these hours. On the other hand, downwards, the supports in area 15,500 remain valid, considered by derivatives traders as the first barrier to be protected in case of falls.

BTC Options

Ethereum (ETH)

In the final phase of the week Ethereum shines again with an extension that brings back the quotation in the 510 USD area, a level that had not been recorded since mid-June 2018 in the middle of the bearish phase that characterized the entire year 2018. The rise above 500 USD is supported by volumes above the daily average of the last month, providing a solid signal that must be confirmed in the coming days if in these hours the prevalence of money is supported by real purchases and not by an increase in the coverage of bearish positions triggered above the technical and psychological threshold of 500 USD.

ETH Chart

Hedges are strengthened with Put options to support the bullish phase that began in mid-March and has so far remained firmly established, building evident levels of support useful as a reference in the event of reversals in the short and medium term. For this reason too, option operators have started to anticipate the increase by 2 weeks (see report from ....), making it very easy to forecast a new annual high. The downward protections are rising, moving from area 365-340 - the levels indicated last week - to areas between 450 and 400 USD. 

ETH Options

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DEXTools: interview with founder Frederic Fernández 

DeFi and decentralized exchanges are progressively increasing their influence in 2020, with DeFi as one of the most used buzzwords in the space nowadays. 

So we decided to interview Frederic Fernàndez, co-founder of DEXTools to better understand this environment and trends for 2021.

1. When and how did you start your project? 

DEXTools began in 2019 as an aid for us in our intraday trading on the IDEX exchange. As crypto and trading enthusiasts, we designed a series of strategies that required a large amount of data and repetitive tasks, so we designed a primitive DEXTools that allowed us to automate many of these tasks and thus increase our profits. 

In 2020, the arrival of Covid and the lockdowns in March forced us to work from home and thus we had more time to devote to our passion for trading, and the idea of launching DEXTools, or IDEXtools as we called it at the time, already haunted our minds. 

So in March we started to improve the app as much as possible, and in June we launched our first version, and with it our token which was a great success. After that, a rebranding and expansion of the product began, in this case towards Uniswap, and today it is known as DEXTools.

2. What's the most promising projects in DeFi right now? 

I believe that the most promising products are those that are able to guarantee security and trust to their users, unfortunately, we keep seeing hacks and exploits in consolidated projects, the first one that manages to bring the necessary trust and a consolidated system will gain an important place in the DeFi ecosystem. When following the technological part, for me the reference is undoubtedly Andre Cronje, any project that he launches is worth a look. About specific projects that will be talked about a lot I could mention the following: 

-Quiverx and what they are developing seems to me very interesting. 

-YFDAI, after YFI, the best finance project, his team is incredible, hardworking and public. 

-Sushi and its exchange, after a stellar beginning have consolidated and I believe that it will continue growing in volume and importance. 

-Lid and his launchpad platform is one of the best in Defi space. 

But the key in DeFi is that there are many projects emerging but also dying, it is like a melting pot of development in which the cycles follow one another, projects die and give way to others, many times with victims in the middle in the form of pull-rugs. It is the price many pay for the development. DEXTools continues to try to increase the security and information of the users so we can continue enjoying this ecosystem that we like so much. 

3. What will be the most important trends for 2021? 

I believe that 2021 will be the year in which DEXs will definitely impose itself on CEXs, many CEXs know this and are adapting and those that do not will languish until they disappear. 

NFTs is another industry that is growing a lot lately and I think it will be very important in the future with the gaming industry. Projects like Revv are only a prototype of what is to come. 

We will see increasingly sophisticated and secure farming platforms, and this trend will be consolidated in the coming year as well. 

But without a doubt 2021 will be the year of DeFi, all the projects that are now being born and growing will have their maturity next year, offering solutions and improvements that we can't even imagine now. 

4. Why did you decide to use Uniswap APIs only? Will you integrate more DEXs? And what're the other plans for the future of DEXTools? 

To be fair, we only use the Uniswap API for minor things, most part of our data comes from our own infrastructure and our own Ethereum node. We use many third-party APIs for information, like etherscan. But we don't like to rely on that, for a project like ours, that needs to have many amounts of trading data in real time, relying on other projects is risky, so we try to be the most auto-sufficient possible. All the info is on the blockchain. 

Yes, we are going to integrate more DEXs in the future, I think Sushi will be one of the first ones and many others like mooniswap. Most of them are Uniswap forks so we will try to adapt the most important ones. 

We just released our new Roadmap with many of the things that are coming in next weeks, but we try to keep our development flexible, with a lot of feedback from our community and trying to release updates all the time. So we don't like to have a fixed roadmap like many other projects. We think adapting is the key to success so we have a floating roadmap, with flexible and adaptable time frames, very focused on community requests. 

5. What are the real pluses of DEXs compared to centralized exchanges? 

I think the biggest advantages of DEXs are their anonymity and ease of use. It is very easy to create an Ethereum wallet with any MetaMask style system and start trading. The Uniswap UI is very simple for example and that is where its success lies. The anonymity and also the large amount of liquidity available, leads CEXs to spend a lot of money to be able to compete with weapons like wash trading or market makers, creating false volumes to attract users and projects. About anonymity, being able to trade, withdraw or send large amounts of assets without making any kind of registration or KYC is obviously a great advantage. 

Security is another very important factor since, with DEXs, users never lose control of their assets, as long as they keep their keys safe, their money is safe. Many exchanges closed in the past leaving their users without funds. 

There is also obviously an ethical component, there are many people who are on a crusade in favour of decentralization, and everyone in crypto supports that ide