February has turned out to be incredibly bullish for the cryptocurrency market. The total capitalization increased from some $1.7 trillion on Feb 1st to where it’s currently at above $2.07 trillion. This represents gains over 21%.
With the year just starting, it’s worth noting that there are many catalysts in the upcoming months that could further improve the market’s performance.
In the following, we take a look at three altcoins that are worth keeping an eye on in March. Let’s dive in.
Ethereum (ETH)
Ethereum has been a frontrunner in February, pushing above $3,000 for the first time since 2022. It appears that the bulls are back in town for ETH, which is up a whopping 35% in the past 30 days.
However, there’s an important update coming in March. It’s called Dencun. The name comes from combining the two cities, Cancun and Deneb, and the focus of this Ethereum hard fork is scalability through the implementation of “data blobs.”
This is a new transaction type that’s intended to scale the information availability for layer-two rollups. You can find more about layer twos in our guide here. The above is very oversimplified summary, and we suggest that you take a read at this post for an in-depth look at Dencun.
We also reached out to Tristan Dickinson, Head of Marketing & Communications at the dYdX Foundation, who said:
“Keep a close eye on Ethereum in the upcoming months and years. Following the transition to a Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, attention has primarily centered on price action rather than the fundamental advantages for users. The move to PoS served as the initial catalyst, and the imminent Dencun upgrade represents the second major catalyst, addressing crucial concerns related to scalability and high fees. The introduction of Proto-danksharding is poised to effectively tackle these significant end-user challenges and will likely cause rapid adoption and increased scalability.”
Andrey Stoyhev, Prime Brokerage at Nexo, also commented:
Moving into March, there are many reasons to be bullish on ETH. Total Ethereum futures contracts are reaching over $10B – a 50% increase since the start of 2024, marking strong market interest. Further to that, the first Ethereum ETF is inching closer to completion, while the growth of restaking is capturing more ETH, effectively removing it from circulation for the foreseeable future and thus reducing sell pressure. Finally, on the tech front, Ethereum’s next major upgrade, Dencun, is running smoothly on the Holešky testnet, suggesting we shouldn’t have to wait long for scaling features such as proto-danksharding to make their mainnet debut. For these reasons, you really don’t want to fade ETH right now.
To sum it up, some of the interesting reasons to keep an eye out for ETH in March include:
- The upcoming Dencun upgrade.
- Positive on-chain metrics indicate a shift toward self-custody.
- Bitcoin’s halving in April.
- The hype associated with the potential approval of a spot ETH ETF in the United States.
Solana (SOL)
Solana has had a tremendous performance in the past few months, skyrocketing to one of the top 5 largest cryptocurrencies by means of total market capitalization. SOL even surpassed BNB for a while for the 4th spot.
Just to give you an idea – SOL was trading at $58 toward the end of November. At the time of this writing, it’s trading above $100 for a whopping 77% surge.
And while February was also positive for SOL, it appears that the cryptocurrencies have so far failed to keep up with other top gainers like Ethereum and even Bitcoin.
Data from TheBlock shows that a number of important on-chain metrics for Solana remain in a clear uptrend despite the dip that happened in February so far. For example, this is how the 7DMA chart of the number of active addresses on the network looked like for the past year:
As we move closer to the Bitcoin halving, explosive altcoins like Solana might continue their uptrend and are definitely worth keeping a close eye on.
Ripple (XRP)
This may come as a surprise to some, given XRP’s relatively stale performance in the past few months. However, Ripple’s native cryptocurrency has spiked by almost 10% in February and is amongst the better performers.
As we go into March, the date of the trial with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission draws ever so closer. Recall that Ripple is in a massive legal battle with the Commission, and the much-anticipated trial is set to start on April 23rd. If the trial starts going in Ripple’s way, this is likely to have an impact on the XRP price as well.
Moreover, Ripple recently acquired the Standard Custody & Trusted Company. It’s an entity that holds a number of money transmitter licenses in the United States, as well as Major Payment Institution License from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and a Virtual Asset Service Provider registration with the Central Bank of Ireland.
Ripple has recently announced plans to start rolling out payments products in the US, which might also be a positive catalyst.
