Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, Stellar, Litecoin, Cardano, NEO, EOS: Price Analysis, Feb. 23

Sanction-hit Venezuela started the pre-sale of its oil backed cryptocurrency Petro on Feb. 20. Just a day later, President Nicolas Maduro’s twitter handle reported raising $735 million. The Venezuelan government plans to raise a total of $6 billion through the sale of 100 Million Petros.

Iran, which is also facing US sanctions is also considering developing its own cryptocurrency.

If these nations successfully bypass the effects of sanctions using cryptocurrencies, this might lead to some strong steps by the regulators in the developed nations led by the US.

Despite this and a few other small issues that can be handled, cryptocurrencies offer a huge opportunity that is attracting the traditional investors. Bitwise Asset Management Vice President of Research and Development Matt Hougan is one such investor who is dumping the ETF industry to go all in on cryptocurrencies.

BTC/USD
In our previous analysis, we had forecast that if Bitcoin breaks the support line of the ascending channel, it can fall to $9,500 levels and that is what happened. Today, Feb.23, the price hit a low of $9,736.32.

BTC

The bounce from the critical support level is encouraging. This shows that the market participants are keen to buy on dips. The first test for the bulls will be the $11,200 mark where the rally is likely to face resistance from the 50-day SMA and the support line of the ascending channel.

If this level is crossed, the final litmus test will be $12,200 level. Above it, the BTC/USD pair will become positive.

Aggressive traders can use dips to $10,300 to initiate long positions with a stop loss of $9,400. 50 percent of the positions can be closed if the cryptocurrency struggles to break out of $11,200. Remaining positions can be held with a suitable stop loss for a rally to $12,000. This is a risky trade, hence, should be attempted with less than 50 percent of the usual position size.

The bears will gain strength only if they are able to sink Bitcoin below $9,500 levels.

ETH/USD
Our expectations of a fall to $780 levels on Ethereum also turned out to be correct. Today, Feb. 23, it hit a low of $787.

ETH

The move from the critical support levels has been encouraging, but the ETH/USD pair is likely to face stiff resistance at the 20-day EMA and the 50-day SMA.

The aggressive traders can use dips to $850 to $830 levels to initiate long positions with a stop loss of $770. Though the target objective is $1,000, traders should closely watch the price action at the $900 mark.

If the cryptocurrency struggles to break out of the resistance, the stops should be raised to breakeven, and 50 percent of the positions should be closed.

This is a risky trade and therefore should only be considered with less than 50 percent of the usual position size.

BCH/USD
Bitcoin Cash also fell according to our expectation. It broke below $1,200 and fell to an intraday low of $1,168.3636.

BCH

The bulls are trying to defend the critical support level of $1,150. If this level breaks, a fall to $854 is likely.

A bounce from the current level will face resistance at $1,400 from the 20-day EMA and above it at $1,680 levels from the 50-day SMA and the trendline.

The BCH/USD pair has been an underperformer in the past few weeks, so we should stick to trading the stronger cryptocurrencies.

XRP/USD
Ripple broke below our stop loss of $0.95 and hit an intraday low of $0.85112. The $0.87 level is critical support. Below this line, we might see a retest of the lows.

XPR

Any attempt to bounce from the current levels will face resistance at the 20-day EMA and at $1.22961 levels.

Unless the XRP/USD pair breaks out of these two resistances, it remains vulnerable to bear attacks. Another possibility is that the cryptocurrency will consolidate in the range of $0.87 to $1.23 for a few days. Currently, we don’t find any buy setups on it.

XLM/USD
Yesterday, Feb. 22, our stop loss on Stellar was hit as it closed at $0.34884075 (UTC). The bulls are aiming to defend the support zone between $0.30 to $0.35.