Bitcoin seeks $23,000, after one-month high, with 'cryptos' above $1 trillion

The cryptocurrency market maintains the good tone of recent days on Tuesday, with its total capitalization above $1 trillion, while Ethereum continues to pull the market, thanks to the good news coming from its work-proof protocol change. Bitcoin, meanwhile, pulls back marginally from Monday's one-month high above $22,600 and puts $23,000 within striking distance.

The value of all tokens, according to CoinMarketCap stands at $1.02 trillion, levels not seen since mid-June, on buying momentum that persisted since late last week and sent Bitcoin´s price soaring as it´s at resistance levels that already rejected rallies about 10 days ago. "Buyers are trying to defend the $19,150 level, but the long wick of the July 13th candle shows that the bearish are selling near the 20-day exponential moving average. Both moving averages are downward sloping and momentum indicators are in the negative zone, indicating that bearish investors are in control," stated Alejandro Zala, country manager at Bitpanda.

In this context, the expert highlighted that "Bitcoin's dominance continues to decline. Although it reached 48% on June 11th, it has since plummeted to the current 41.7%." "While this drop usually indicates a market with high risk appetite, with the current low sentiment market, this translates into a drop in prices," commented Zala.

As for other tokens, Ether - a unit of the Ethereum network - surpassed $1,500 and is up 40% from a week ago. Other 'altocoins' are also showing significant increases. MATIC, the token of the Polygon blockchain, deserves special mention, leaving a rise of 20% in the last 24 hours and 60% since a week ago.

Experts, however, caution not to be dazzled by these rises. "The moves we're seeing in general don't look sustainable to me, although the fact that the news in the cryptocurrency space hasn't deteriorated further will be encouraging for the community," stated Craig Erlam, analyst at Oanda.