This has been a red week for crypto markets, with all the sectors down by double digits.
The Weiss 50 Crypto Index (W50) — the world’s broadest crypto barometer —was down by 16.7% on the week ending Nov. 22.
The picture is very similar even when you strip out Bitcoin: The Weiss 50 Ex-BTC Crypto Index (W50X), dominated by large altcoins, fell 17.4% in the same period.
The two indices give you the first clues that the week’s sell-off is widespread, sparing almost no one.
Still, even in a down week, the pattern we’ve been harping on persists: An unusual kind of underperformance by market leaders. Just dividethe crypto universe into separate orbits by market cap, and you’ll see what we mean …
The Weiss Large Cap Crypto Index (WLC) was down 16.8% (coincidentally, really close to the Weiss 50 Crypto Index) …
The Weiss Mid-Cap Crypto Index (WMC) lost 15.6% of its value in the past seven days. And …
The only sector that held is value a bit better is the Weiss Small-Cap Crypto Index (WSC), down 13.3%. See the break in the pattern? In recent updates, we’ve shown you how it went up the most.This time, it’s down the least.
The behavior of individual coins confirms this divergence: Larger-cap coins like XRP, Ethereum and Litecoin were among the hardest hit. Moreover, at least on an intraday basis, the latter twohave broken down below support levels that had been established back in late August. Ditto for Bitcoin.
What about the smaller coins? Not only are they outperforming the large-cap coins in terms of percentage changes from week to week, but they’re also doing a better job of holding ABOVE their prior support levels.
This divergence is the silver lining in a red-ink week. It can often be the prelude to a quick bounce-back among recent underperformers.
Whether that’s the case now or not remains to be seen. But we’ll be watching it closely, and we’ll let you know either way over the next couple of weeks.
Plus, we’ll also be watching the downside: If all Weiss Crypto Indexes dip below key support levels, the bearish implications could go beyond just a fortnight.
What caused the selloff? It seems to be comments from the People’s Bank of China. In short, the statement made was that the country views blockchain technology favorably, not cryptocurrencies.
This is unsurprising and, as we informed our subscribers at the time, China has always had the same stance on Distributed Ledger Technology.
Xi Jinping’s comments that China is “all in on blockchain” really meant nothing, and we’re glad to see it discounted from crypto asset prices.
