Macro crypto currency market outlook

Ether has been in bullish consolidation mode since pushing to a yearly high back in March. The market is now looking for a higher low above $2,500 ahead of the next major upside extension beyond the yearly high at $4,095 and towards a retest and eventual break of the 2021 record high at $4,870. At this stage, only a monthly close below $3,000 would delay the constructive outlook.

Price action in the crypto market has been somewhat deceptive over the past several days. We say this because we haven’t really gone anywhere at all since mid-May. We also haven’t seen bitcoin and ether push past their respective record and yearly highs from March. Yet if we pull things back and consider overall performance in May, we get a decidedly more constructive story. Bitcoin closed out May +11% and ether closed out the month up a staggering 25%. The takeaway is that recent sideways price action is likely more indicative of a bullish consolidation than anything else.

May was really all about bitcoin taking a back seat after shining earlier in the year on momentum from the SEC bitcoin spot ETF approvals and the halving event. May was also about crypto becoming more recognized as an asset class beyond bitcoin, with the SEC finally going ahead and approving the ETH spot ETFs. This was the primary driver behind the outperformance in the price of ether.

But bitcoin continued to have its moments as well. One such example came from Nasdaq listed Semler Scientific, after the company followed in the footsteps of MicroStrategy, announcing bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset. There were other examples of crypto adoption from the traditional world, including the addition of ETF products in other major countries, the use of crypto by metal producers as a more efficient means to settle cross-border transactions, and what appeared to be a move towards bipartisan support for crypto in the US government.

Indeed, President Biden’s veto of the House Joint Resolution that would have limited the SEC’s oversight in the crypto space and made for a more crypto friendly regulatory environment, has been a minor setback. At the same time, the move shouldn’t come as a major surprise and the story is more about the bigger picture takeaway of wider adoption and acceptance of crypto as an asset class. Now that President Trump has given his support to crypto, we suspect this will make for a more interesting story on the political front in the lead up to the US election. There is a feeling the Democrats won’t be wanting to risk votes in speaking out against crypto, which could only serve to accelerate additional adoption in the weeks and months ahead.

Technically speaking, it’s important to remember that both bitcoin and ether made record highs in 2021. We say this because the two assets are well correlated, and bitcoin has already gone ahead and pushed to a fresh record high in 2024. This leaves plenty of room for ether (more than 20% off the record high) to now go ahead and look to make its own record high in 2024, which suggests we still could see a lot more upside for both bitcoin and ether in 2024.