Ominous Omicron COVID-19 Variant

Chart of the Day

After finding solid support at the $53.5k level over the weekend, BTC started a fresh round of upside movement to the $57k level, and has now recovered most of its losses from the Black Friday plummet. This momentum has sparked a breakthrough above a key bearish trendline on the hourly chart, and is now fueling a retest of the $58k resistance zone. Of course, it may take more than just price action to soothe all the wrangled nerves from the weekend, so it is important for us to consider everything in perspective. Said Black Friday plummet, as sudden as it seemed, actually constitutes the least severe correction in 2021 in terms of BTC's percentage drop from all-time highs. Additionally, price action notwithstanding, on-chain data also hints at a relatively rosy future for BTC — the number of active BTC addresses with a balance of more than 0.01 BTC has reached an all-time high, while the number of addresses with more than 100 BTC continues to trend down from the 2017 market top. This suggests a possible redistribution of BTC from whales to retail traders as BTC continues to become increasingly decentralized, and also points toward the fact that BTC is rapidly gaining traction amongst the masses. 

Talk of the Town

Metaverse tokens were able to withstand the COVID-induced market crash on Friday, and most continue to greatly outperform the broader crypto market. One such token would be SAND, the utility token of an upcoming blockchain-based game titled The Sandbox. SAND has surged more than 75% in the past week amid the token's sustained, month-long rally, and these upside gains have shot SAND up into the top 50 list of cryptocurrencies by market cap. SAND's price movement was largely buoyed by bullish news with regard to a partnership with Adidas, where the sportswear giant recently announced that they had reserved a plot of land in the game to kickstart their foray into the metaverse.