The cryptocurrency market posted a bullish performance in January to kick off the year on a high note, reclaiming its trillion-dollar status.
Bitcoin, the flagship cryptocurrency asset, posted a massive bullish performance, and the rest of the market followed suit to start the year on a high note. It started the month at $16,603.67 and ended the month at $23,139.28, representing a 39.36% gain, leveraging on the Santa rally seen at the tail end of December 2022.
The cryptocurrency market capitalization increased 31.99% for the month, from $793.5 billion at the start of the month to $1.05 trillion at the end of the month, trading as high as $1.1 trillion.
The altcoin market experienced similar bullishness, rising 26.68% in January from around $475.4 billion to $602.2 billion at the end of the month. During the month, the altcoin market capitalization reached $640 billion.
With the market currently bullish, here are 5 cryptocurrencies investors should keep an eye on in February 2023.
Bitcoin’s BTC
At the start of the year, we are seeing strong price action for the price of Bitcoin as the token is trading higher and looking to break above the $25,000 psychological support. BTC has seen a flash of volatility on the back of fresh economic data from the United States. Nonetheless, the uptick delivered Bitcoin’s highest price point since September 2022.
While the year has started super bullish for the cryptocurrency space, some analysts are cautious, opting to wait and see if the improved conditions last. However, some Analysts like Franzen see the current uptick as a great sign as the data coming from what is known as the “Williams %R oscillator” a technical analysis metric, is of particular interest.
Williams %R is a momentum oscillator that measures how near BTC/USD is to its recent highs or lows. Momentum oscillators are utilized to measure the strength of a price trend, and Bitcoin’s January performance has made it a prime test case. Franzen wrote in part of a dedicated Twitter thread that, “Bitcoin’s 12-month Williams%R oscillator left the ‘oversold’ threshold as of January’s monthly close. Historically, leaving the lower-bound has signalled two things: 1. The cycle lows are in. 2. The bear market is over.”
He added that the phenomenon was a “great sign” while acknowledging that a bull run was not guaranteed, as a sign of caution to investors looking to dive into the market during this time.
Bitcoin ended the month’s trading at $23,139.28.
BNB Chain’s BNB
The Binance network includes the Binance Chain, Binance Smart Chain, Binance Academy, Trust Wallet and Research projects, which all employ the powers of blockchain technology to bring new-age finance to the world. BNB is an integral part of the successful functioning of many of the Binance sub-projects.
According to new data from Messari, the average daily addresses on the Binance blockchain network grew by 30% year-on-year in Q4. According to recent research, the BNB Chain continued to show steady activity growth in the fourth quarter of last year despite the broader crypto bear market.
In a “State of BNB Chain Q4 2022” report published on Feb. 5, Messari researcher James Trautman revealed that the Binance network had continued with an “aggressive strategy to deploy financial and human capital across its ecosystem.” Due to these ongoing updates and developments, average daily active addresses and transactions “bucked a downward trend and grew by 30% and 0.2%, respectively,” the researcher noted.
Also, Binance has been the front-runner crypto platform to support its users who have been affected by the devastating earthquake that hit Turkey. In response to the tragedy, cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced that it will airdrop $100 worth of BNB tokens to all Binance users residing in the region hardest hit by the earthquake.
BNB ended the month’s trading at $312.36.
Ethereum’s Ether
In the digital assets space, Ethereum remains the largest smart contract platform, hosting a plethora of financial products, innovation, and automation, with varying degrees of decentralization (generally referred to as DeFi).
According to a data report from Analytex, Ethereum’s average gas price, calculated in terms of the smallest Ether denomination, “gwei,” increased by 29.27% in January 2023. The report compares gas prices from January to December 2022, noting an increase in user activity as a key indicator for the rise in average gas price from 19.2 gwei to 24.82 gwei month-on-month.
However, the report also notes that the average number of unique active Ethereum wallets per day decreased by around 10% to 387,475, the lowest figure over the past six months. Meanwhile, the average number of unique active smart contracts increased by 6.74%. Analytex suggests that this indicates “increased interest of both current blockchain users, as well as smart contracts developers.”
Ether ended the month trading at $1,586.54.
SingularityNET’s AGIX
SingularityNET is a blockchain-powered platform that allows anybody to easily “create, share, and monetize” AI services, thanks to its globally accessible AI marketplace.
Through the SingularityNET marketplace, users can browse, test, and purchase various AI services using the platform’s native utility token, AGIX. Moreover, the marketplace represents an outlet AI developers can use to publish and sell their AI tools, and easily track their performance.
SingularityNET is the first platform that makes it easy for developers to sell their AI tools and libraries and enables buyers to test any AI service provided on the marketplace to see if it meets their needs before making payment.
On top of this, those needing specific AI services can also tap SingularityNET’s extensive community of AI specialists through the Request for AI portal (RFAI), which allows customers to easily commission a new AI tool, while developers can earn AGIX tokens by filling these requests.
The token has rallied over 180% in the last seven days as the interest in Artificial Intelligence grows. With ChatGPT scoring a $10 billion endorsement from Microsoft, to Google Launching its own AI platform, Bard, the interest in the AI industry is very high, with stock and token prices expected to continue in a bullish trend for the next couple of months.
AGIX ended the month trading at $0.177.
XRP
XRP is the native token of the XRP Ledger and can be used as a currency to transact on the platform and other supported platforms.
Ripple is still dealing with the case with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In December 2020, the SEC charged Ripple with allegations stating that its executives sold $1.3 billion worth of XRP in an unregistered securities offering. Ripple objected to the claims, saying that XRP should not be considered a security.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse expects the firm’s long-running dispute with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) will be finalized within “single-digit months” and remains confident in securing a favourable outcome.
Speaking to CNBC on Jan. 18 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Garlinghouse said that verdict could come as soon as June now that both parties have “filled and fully briefed” their arguments before the U.S. District Court. He further stated, “We expect a decision from a judge certainly in 2023. You don’t have control over when a judge makes their decisions. But I’m optimistic that sometime in the coming single-digit months we’ll have closure there.”
While Garlinghouse and investors believe that the facts, law and the court will ultimately side with Ripple, the Ripple CEO also took the opportunity to ridicule the SEC’s “embarrassing” behaviour displayed throughout the lawsuit, noting, “The SEC’s behaviour in some of it has been embarrassing as a U.S. citizen. Just some of the things that have been happening, like you’ve got to be kidding.”.
