Bitcoin, Stellar & Ripple – European Wrap 20 February

Bitcoin (BTC) has been consolidating between $94,000 and $100,000 since February 5. Glassnode reports weakening capital inflows and declining derivatives activity, with short-term holder accumulation resembling challenging market conditions. 

In an exclusive interview, YouHodler Chief of Markets Ruslan Lienkha told FXStreet that a prolonged high-rate environment adds selling pressure to the markets, making Bitcoin trade sideways without any clearly defined trend.

Stellar (XLM) price trades inside a channel pattern; a breakout indicates bullish momentum. Crypto intelligence tracker DefiLlama data shows that XLM’s TVL reaches $62 million while the technical outlook projects a target of $0.74.

Stellar price trades inside a channel pattern formed by connecting multiple highs and lows with two trendlines from late November. This technical pattern breakout favors the bulls, and the target is generally obtained by measuring the distance between the first daily high and the first daily low to the breakout point. Moreover, XLM’s price has been retested, and support for its 200-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) has been found at $0.284. At the time of writing on Thursday, it trades at around $0.343.

Ripple’s XRP saw a 6% uptick above $2.70 in the early Asian session on Thursday following the Securities & Exchange Commission’s (SEC) accelerated acknowledgment of XRP ETF filings. Meanwhile, asset manager Hashdex could launch the world’s first spot XRP ETF in Brazil after receiving the country’s SEC-equivalent authority approval.

The SEC acknowledged XRP ETF filings from Nasdaq and Cboe BZX exchanges on behalf of CoinShares, Canary Capital and WisdomTree, respectively, per three separate Wednesday filings on the agency’s website.