Crypto Market Update for 22 August 2020: $BTC, $ETH, $LINK, $ICX, $BAND

This article provides an update on the cryptoasset market, with a particular focus on the following digital assets: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Chainlink (LINK), ICON (ICX), and Band Protocol (BAND).

All market data used in this article was taken from CryptoCompare around 10:45 UTC on 22 August 2020.

According to data from TradingView, during the past five-day period, since 16:00 UTC on Monday (August 17), when the Bitcoin price reached an intraday high of $12,474, total crypto market cap has dropped around $29 billion.

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index, which is based on an analysis of “emotions and sentiments from different sources”, is currently telling us that we are in “Extreme Greed” category:

Bitcoin (BTC)

Bitcoin (BTC) is trading around $11,591, down 1.42% in the past 24-hour period:

Popular dutch analyst/trader “Crypto Michaël” had this to say about Bitcoin’s latest price action:

Data from on-chain market intelligence startup Glassnode shows that the indicator “Supply Last Active 2y – 3y” reached a six-month low of 2,547,634.964 BTC at 11:15 UTC on August 22:

Ethereum (ETH)

Ethereum (ETH) is trading around $392, down 3.57% in the past 24-hour period:

On Friday (August 21), Anthony Sassano, who is the Product Marketing Manager at Set Labs, Co-Founder of ETH Hub, and the co-host of the “Into the Ether” podcast, offered the following insight about the use of Bitcoin for decentralized finance (DeFi):

BTC has been migrating to Ethereum at a rapid pace over the last few months and it’s mainly to do one thing – yield farm.

Some thoughts on this in my latest piece 👇https://t.co/Q67VfhXEiQ

— Anthony Sassano | sassal.eth 👨‍🌾 🏴 (@sassal0x) August 21, 2020

On the same day, Scott Melker, a crypto analyst/trader at TexasWest Capital, sent out two tweets that suggested long-term he is still very bullish on Ethereum:

I will be buying these $ETH dips, and there’s nothing anyone can do to convince me otherwise.

— The Wolf Of All Streets (@scottmelker) August 21, 2020

I’m buying for the long term price is almost irrelevant to me. I want every dip.

— The Wolf Of All Streets (@scottmelker) August 21, 2020

And crypto-focused behavior analytics startup Santiment pointed out that on August 21 Ethereum transaction fees (in $USD) dropped back to their mid-July levels:

Chainlink (LINK)

Chainlink (LINK) is trading around $14.77, down 1.99% in the past 24-hour period:

The Chainlink team announced a new partnership yesterday (August 21) with Ethereum-powered role playing game (RPG) ChainGuardians:

.@Chain_Guardians will use #ChainlinkVRF to power a new color customization feature for the upcoming Chainlink Guardians. Players will mint NFTs tied to different colors, which can then be merged with Chainlink Guardians to personalize the game experience. https://t.co/RZSbltJhjF

— Chainlink – Official Channel (@chainlink) August 21, 2020

ICON (ICX)

ICON (ICX) is trading around $0.7119, up 18.73% in the past 24-hour period:

According to ICON’s white paper, the aim of this South Korean project is to “build a decentralized network that allows independent blockchains with different governances to transact with one another without intermediaries.”

The reason for the surge in the ICX price is the announcement of a partnership between ICON and the local government of South Korea’s Jeju province, as explained by the following tweetstorm:

1/ “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”

15 Million ppl will use the @Helloiconworld ICON public chain & $ICX in the entirety of 1 of Korea’s 9 provinces, Jeju.

This is just the start of ICON’s promise: mass public chain adoption.

A Twitter storm below⚡️

— Markus | P-Rep: ICON Hyperconnect (@markusjayvc) August 21, 2020

Band Protocol (BAND)

Band Protocol (BAND) is trading around $10.43, down 11.98% in the past 24-hour period:

On Thursday (August 20), the Swipe team announced a strategic partnership with Band Protocol:

On Friday (August 21), the Band Protocol team announced that FutureICX, a decentralized prediction market powered by the ICON blockchain network, “had completed the integration of their BandChain customized oracle script and the migration to BandChain Proof-of-Authority Mainnet.”

Soravis Srinawakoon, Co-Founder and CEO of Band Protocol, had this to say:

“Band Protocol is excited to support one of the leading decentralized applications to come out of the ICON Network ecosystem.

“The future of blockchain applications is not purely for decentralized finance but a variety of use-cases including prediction market and games.

“The collaboration with FutureICX to secure their prediction market logic is an example of the wide array of applications that Band Protocol’s customizable and scalable oracles are able to support.”

Featured Image by “WorldSpectrum” via Pixabay.com

The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.