Here’s the Top Performing Altcoins for the Last Week, Ethereum and Competitors Dominate

The last week in the crypto space remained eventful with altcoins taking up the charge after a long time. While Bitcoin oscillates around $22,000 levels, Ethereum and its Layer 1 Competitors outperformed the broader market.

Altcoins dominated the crypto market adding nearly $50 billion to the overall market cap last week. The world’s second-largest crypto Ethereum (ETH) has surged past $1,4000 levels over the last weekend extending its weekly gains to more than 22% as of press time.

The ETH price rallied as developers confirmed that they should be rolling out the much-awaited Merge upgrade on the Ethereum mainnet in the week of September 19. The Merge upgrade will transition Ethereum to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain network which drastically improves network scalability and reduce network congestion and transaction costs.

Ethereum Layer-1 Competitors

Along with Ethereum, other Layer-1 competitors delivered a strong performance last week. Solana (SOL) rallied a strong 14% moving past $40 levels as of press time. On the technical charts, SOL is trying to move through the 50-day exponential moving average (EMA). It can reach $48 if its breaches through some key resistances.

$sol trying to get above the 50 day EMA again after yesterday's rejection.

If successful the next key areas of resistance are at $42, $45, and $48. pic.twitter.com/6YV04tHi3l

— Lark Davis (@TheCryptoLark) July 18, 2022

Avalanche ($AVAX) is another Layer-1 competitor delivering nearly 18% returns over the last week and moving past $21. as of press time. AVAX has a rocky performance last quarter amid the broader crypto meltdown. The cryptocurrency has already corrected more than 80% of its all-time high.

Another altcoin performing exceptionally well last week is Ethereum’s own Layer-2 scalability platform Polygon’s MATIC. The MATIC price has skyrocketed a staggering 45% over the last week moving past $0.80.

Last week, Polygon also became the only blockchain to be chosen for Disney’s accelerator program this year. On the technical charts, MATIC looks overbought as of now. On the upside, MATIC can touch levels of $1.0.

$matic rallying hard!

Passing over the 100 day EMA.

Entering overbought on RSI. Careful.

Next big target would be $1 around the 200 day EMA! pic.twitter.com/fMOh5iEn3c

— Lark Davis (@TheCryptoLark) July 18, 2022

Ethereum Network Performance Vs Competitors

While the ETH price has faced a 75% meltdown from the top, it has been resilient in network performance and user activity, in comparison to its competitors. While comparing the on-chain activity, CoinMarket Cap explains:

BNB Chain currently has the greatest drawdown, with its daily transactions falling 58.2% from the day of its ATH, while Solana and Ethereum are down 18.1% and 13.7% respectively.

Similarly, the number of daily active addresses on “BNB Chain and Ethereum declined by 68.8% and 27.2% respectively since November 2021”. On the other hand, Solana witnessed a 20% jump in its daily active addresses.