The cryptocurrency market saw a downturn in May, with Bitcoin (BTC) declining by 7.37% and Ether (ETH) decreasing by 0.22%. The average loss across the market was 5.62% on the last day of the month. However, some outliers posted impressive gains, driven by popular investment narratives and the growth of the Ethereum staking sector.
Pepecoin and Kava
In the first half of May, memecoins dominated the news cycle, with Pepecoin (PEPE) leading the narrative. PEPE’s market capitalization surged to a peak of $1.54 billion in the first week of May, but has since witnessed a sell-off as tokenholders booked profits. Despite this, the token still ended the month with over 300% gains.
The Kava (KAVA) price was propelled by a mainnet upgrade on May 17, which enhanced the blockchain’s throughput and security. KAVA also received a boost from tokenholders’ suggestions to terminate the project’s grants and rewards programs by the end of 2023. The KAVA/USDT pair faces resistance from the long-term support and resistance level at $1.14, but a successful breakout above this level could motivate buyers to push KAVA toward $1.50. Support from buyers to the downside lies at $0.96 and $0.80.
XRP, Tron, Rocket Pool, and Render Token
XRP (XRP) posted a gain of 7.29% over the month, with most of its price surge coming in the last few days. A spike in its daily transfer activity, which usually precedes a positive rally, led traders to pile in with buy orders after on-chain analytics firm Santiment reported the activity on Twitter. According to popular opinion, Ripple, the fintech company behind the XRP token, is close to winning its securities case against the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Tron (TRX) gained popularity in the last few weeks due to reports around its usage in market-making on centralized exchanges and the network’s revenue. While Tron’s decentralized finance usage is limited, it is the leading blockchain platform for Tether (USDT) issuance, with $40 billion of USDT on Tron, surpassing the stablecoin’s supply on Ethereum by $10 billion, according to Coin Metrics’ supply data. The stablecoin transfers led to a spike in Tron fees to make it the second-highest revenue-generating blockchain after Ethereum.
Rocket Pool is the second most popular decentralized liquid staking derivative platform after Lido. It commands a 3% market share of the total Ethereum staking pool and has grown twofold in the last six months, according to Dune data from Hildobby.
Render Token (RNDR) benefited from the recent artificial intelligence (AI) hype that has culminated in an uptick in companies requiring graphics cards for training AI models. RNDR is an ERC-20 utility token that powers Render Network, a protocol that provides a decentralized marketplace for graphics processing unit (GPU) power. Using RNDR as the medium of exchange, Render Network connects users looking to rent processing power with those who have idle GPUs.
The TRX/USD pair has a bullish breakout from an ascending triangle pattern with a target of $0.112, with resistance at the 2022 high level of around $0.093. The daily chart of the RPL/USD pair looks bullish, with RPL forming a trend of higher lows restricted by the horizontal resistance at $52. If buyers conquer this resistance level, RPL can witness a 60% upside target based on the ascending triangle pattern. The RNDR/USD pair has exhibited significant volatility around the resistance and support level of $2.13, with buyers potentially finding support around local lows at $1.62 and $0.90.
The cryptocurrency market saw a downtrend in May, with some outliers posting impressive gains. Pepecoin and Kava led the way in the first half of the month, while XRP, Tron, Rocket Pool, and Render Token stood out in the second half. Technical indicators suggest that these tokens may continue to see bullish movements in the near future.
Leave a Reply