BTC, ETH stumble, recover

Bitcoin had an interesting weekend, exuberant, strutting – like a rowdy spring breaker on Ocean Drive – ultimately battered by batons and doused with tear gas.

Sunday naturally was a day of recovery. A new all-time high could be close at hand, some new thrill ride, just around the bend, or something else completely unexpected.

Regardless, BTC begins the week with a spring in its step. Over 24 hours, it increased 1.4% to $57,400 as of 8:45 a.m. (EST).

Ethereum has endured a rocky seven-day stretch during which time the second largest crypto saw its price fall 3.3%. ETH has declined 8.4% in the past 30 days.

Ethereum congestion, resulting in high gas prices, could soon abate if only because sizable pipelines of DeFi projects are in the process of possibly decamping to Cardano (Blockonomi).

However, Etheruem 2.0 deployment could be on a fast track (CoinDesk); and selling pressure in ETH seems to be held at bay by higher demand among a growing number of people looking at it as a store of value. “These fundamental factors suggest that Ether has a high probability of advancing further,” FX Street said.

Still, in the short-run, ETH continues to sway listlessly within spitting distance of the $2,000 mark it last reached in February.

Of all the candle patterns guiding technically driven traders, there is one that appears particularly flummoxing – the so-called “Doji Star,” a cross-shape that forms when neither bulls nor bears can seize any discernable command.

So while the direction of the trend clearly is not entirely clear, it seems more likely than not to be bullish, based on the breaching, short-term, of the descending resistance line (BeInCrypto).

The four largest publicly-traded Bitcoin mining companies – Marathon Digital Holdings, Riot Blockchain, Hive Blockchain and Hut 8 – had an average return of 5,000% in the past 12 months, a trough-to-peak period if ever there was one. It's next-level ostentatious, even compared to BTC which gained 900% over that same time.

Those stocks obviously had a high positive correlation with BTC, Fundstrat said, calculating that for every 1% price move in BTC, the mining firms’ shares moved by 2.5% on average, including upward and downward moves (Cointelegraph).

Effectively shielding themselves from competition, the biggest mining operations took advantage of pandemic-related supply chain disruptions to go into maximum overdrive, loading up on next-generation hardware.