As the world’s biggest economy celebrates its Thanksgiving, the US dollar Index (DXY) is still riding pretty high… and the crypto market’s not exactly a turkey, either.

At the time of writing, the entire cryptocurrency market cap is looking about 5.3% more positive than this time yesterday, and is back up around US$2.81 trillion – according to CoinGecko data.

There’s a lot more green on the crypto charts today, with some pretty tasty offerings well placed on the table.

Coin360.com

OG market-moving favourites Bitcoin (BTC) +4.6%, and Ethereum (ETH) +7.1%, are both showing some good form. And even the former no. 3, Cardano (ADA) + 6.5%, looks like it might be back in some sort of business after a reasonably torrid, big-dipping week for the asset.

Bitcoin, seen as an inflation hedge by many, usually correlates negatively against a strong-performing DXY. The latter is still in a lofty position compared with where it’s been for much of the past 16 months, however, could it be hitting a little bit of resistance? Possibly. It’s down a fraction – negative 0.12% since its last daily close.

Bitcoin dominance, meanwhile, has dropped a little bit. According to CoinGecko, which accounts for 11,124 cryptos at the time of writing, Bitcoin dominance over the market has dipped to 39.63%.

CoinMarketCap, however, takes in data from more coins – 14,812 – and is showing a BTC dominance figure of 41.8%. It’s still lower than it has been recently, though.

Is a lower Bitcoin dominance good? It potentially is for altcoins. The lower that level comes down, the higher chance it is that we could be moving into a possible “altcoin season”. A traditionally festive period of frothy FOMO, “moon Lambo” chatter and general price pumpage.

No guarantee, of course, but a quick look around Crypto Twitter, and it’s not hard to find some excitable chit-chat and positive chart-gazing analysis for the altcoins…

… but also for Bitcoin, too…

Meanwhile, the US Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren has a Thanksgiving message for Americans…

… and the billionaire Gemini crypto exchange and custodian co-founder Cameron Winklevoss has one for her… #inflationnation…

And, lingering on the Thanksgiving theme for a moment longer, Macy’s – one of America’s biggest department stores – launched its “Macy’s Parade NFT” series today, built on the Polygon network, with all proceeds going to charity.

 

Mooners and shakers: Gala Games hits boss level

While trying to keep FOMO in check, let’s have a look at what’s really moving in the cryptoverse today…

Some notable double-digit gainers in the top 100 by market cap include: dog-meme coin Shiba Inu (SHIB) +20%; Polygon (MATIC) +11%; Theta Network (THETA) +12%; Filecoin (FIL) +11%; Gala Games (GALA), relentlessly continuing to level up, +47%; Curve (CRV) +18%; Basic Attention Token (BAT) +29%; and Immutable X (IMX) +11%.

A scene from Gala Games’ Spider Tanks NFT battler

Projects in the GameFi space are on a roll right now, and Gala Games, with its suite of fun-looking time wasters, including Spider Tanks and Townstar, is clearly crushing it…

While investing at all-time-high levels isn’t really advisable (er, not financial advice), GALA is clearly one to keep watching. Perhaps a decent entry point will come on the back of some market profit taking.

A brief look outside the top 100, and we’ve got more daily winners, including RPG NFT battler Illuvium (ILV) +14%, hitting a new all-time high of US$1,800 an hour ago; Request Network (REQ) +170%; Chain Games (+58%); and Ethereum Name Service (ENS) +48%… just to name a few.

On the flip side, some notable 24-hour dippers today include cutesy metaverse game My Neighbour Alice (ALICE) -13%; The Sandbox (SAND) -12%; Wax (WAXP) -12%; and Decentraland (MANA) -10%.

Some potentially tasty Thanksgiving pullbacks within the buzzy metaversal narrative, right there.

 

Moonbeam grabs second Polkadot parachain slot

Oh… and a final news bite to finish up. As widely expected, Moonbeam – a Polkadot-based smart-contract platform – has won the second, highly coveted parachain slot, with over 35 million DOT contributed from more than 200,000 contributers worldwide.

The project joins Acala, a Polkadot ecosystem DeFi hub, on the exclusive Relay Chain-plugging list. You can read all about what that means, and how it all works, here. It’s, you know, kind of a big deal.