With Bitcoin Stuck in the Doldrums, Altcoins Continue to Rally

Bitcoin is still consolidating with no clear direction in sight, but some alternative cryptocurrencies like Chainlink’s LINK token and Aave’s LEND are soaring.

• Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency by market value, is trading near $9,240 at press time, representing moderate losses on a 24-hour basis.
• The cryptocurrency has spent a better part of the last two months trading the narrow range of $9,000–$10,000.
• The prolonged consolidation has pushed a key volatility metric to its lowest level since November 2018.
• A big move could happen soon, possibly on the higher side, as on-chain data is painting a bullish picture.
• The seven-day moving average of the number of active bitcoin addresses has risen to a 2.5-year high of 478,669, as per data source Glassnode, likely indicating increased demand for the cryptocurrency.
• The percentage of bitcoin that hasn't moved in a year also jumped to a new record high of 62.12% on Tuesday – a sign of strong investor confidence in the cryptocurrency's long-term prospects.

Chainlink

• LINK, an Ethereum ERC-20 standard token used to pay for services on the decentralized oracle network Chainlink, has risen by over 10% in the past 24 hours.
• LINK is now trading above $8.15, up 78% on a month-to-date basis and up 364% for 2020.
• The token seems to be benefiting from the buzz around decentralized finance (DeFi).
• LINK's trading volume has now surpassed that of Ethereum’s ether token to become the third-most traded cryptocurrency in the last 24 hours, as per Messari.
• With LINK’s price rising by over 300% this year, all 168,160 addresses currently holding the token are “in-the-money” or making a profit on their investments, according to IntoTheBlock, a blockchain intelligence company.

Aave

• LEND token, the native cryptocurrency of the decentralized lending platform Aave, and decentralized technology platform Ontology’s ONT token have also gained over 10% in the past 24 hours.
• Aave’s LEND token has increased by over 1200% so far this year due to a rapid increase in usage since the launch of mainnet in January.
• As reported Monday, altcoins in general are performing well while bitcoin languishes.
• The FTX exchange's index of 50 low-capitalization cryptocurrencies, the so-called Shitcoin Index, is up 111% so far this year.

Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.