It hasn’t been the start to Quarter Two that the crypto market would have been hoping for Apecoin, Stepn and Monero aside, crypto charts over the last 30 days are in the red, with both steady and volatile downward trends. However, the journeys that each of the popular tokens in the market have been on through the month has varied considerably, with some declining gradually and others more extreme. Regardless of the journey, long term holders will have, for the most part, seen a fall in value on their crypto throughout the month.
Starting close to $46k at the beginning of April, Bitcoin is now hanging around the $40k mark, dampening any potential optimism towards the world’s most popular cryptocurrency and its tipped resurgence. Long term holders will have seen close to $8k wiped off their investment value since the
beginning of 2022, however there certainly was cause for optimism considering it had recovered most ofits position from the start of the year coming into Q2. While Bitcoin entered April with momentum, it heads into the new month having lost ground, looking up more than it is down.
Long term holding of Bitcoin is also at its highest, showing that market sentiment is geared towards riding the storm with a belief that BTC will bounce back again — which, in its defense, it always has.
With Bitcoin generally trending downwards throughout April, Ethereum actually bounced back from an initial price fall to trade steadily around the $3,400/3,500 mark until April 6th. From here, the price of ETHcontinued to fall below the $3k benchmark, with particularly heavy losses felt between April 10th-12th and April 21st-22nd. Short term traders could have taken advantage of some brief positive volatility, however the story for long term holders of Ethereum is essentially the same as those of Bitcoin — a month approached with optimism actually manifested into a month of pessimism. Heading into May, Ethereum is trading close to $2,900.
Similarly to Ethereum, Terra started the month positively, trading as high as $119 before falling to as low as $76 on the 18th. However, those who bought the dip would have been rewarded in the short term as LUNA rallied to trade above the $90 mark until the last week of the month. Floating around the mid $80 mark as we head into May, Terra has recovered its position at the beginning of 2022 for the most part, and is one of the tokens that long term holders will be feeling a bit more comfortable holding in comparison to others.
Apecoin completed its first full month of trading in April, and had plenty to show for it. Managing to ride out any storms in the market, APE traded steadily around the $11/12 mark before peaking around the $27 pricepoint at the end of the month. With all the talk of NFTs at the moment, it’s no surprise to see anNFT-themed token like Apecoin hold strength in the market.
There was still some short term potential for traders to earn on their crypto, however HODLers will have felt the pinch in April overall, for the most part. If you are to take a look at a price graph for almost any popular cryptocurrency throughout the month, they will most all tell you the same story. Markets declined from around the 2nd week of the month onwards, and are yet to stop the decline.
April was the month where the 35% India crypto tax took full effect, with trading activity subsequently falling off a cliff among the most popular Indian exchanges. Native exchange WazirX mooted a potential move to the more favorable crypto environment of Dubai, such are the consequences of India’s new legislation. The implementation of such a tax will have undoubtedly contributed to market sentiment, and moves like taxing on crypto holdings will be felt across markets in the future also.
With that said, Elon Musk made his contribution to the crypto market in rallying Dogecoin — albeit inadvertently. Owing to his much publicized business activities and the subsequent correlation between Musk and everyone’s favorite memecoin, DOGE spiked from $0.12 to $0.1641 on April 26th, when news broke of Musk’s successful bid for the social network, Twitter. Twitter currently holds a strict stance towards the advertisement of cryptocurrencies on its platform, however if we are to join the dots and expect a relaxation of these rules under new leadership, we can expect some kind of positive impact across crypto markets.
Looking ahead to May, it’s back to the drawing board for the crypto market. With optimism fading, tokens will want to stabilize and make small but incremental gains on their positions this coming month. If you’re looking to get into crypto for the first time, with markets generally down across the board this may be a better time to dip your toe into the water, as tokens may be considered to be below their actual value.
