Mooners and Shakers: Bitcoin steady; Terra, Near, Spell and Cosmos rocket

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Are we seeing the start of the “Santa rally” the crypto market’s been hoping for? Unconfirmed… but various altcoins have certainly been pumping on a green day in the cryptoverse.
At the time of writing, the entire crypto market-cap valuation is up another 2.2% from this time yesterday, sitting around US$2.43 trillion – give or take a few hundred million.
The mood on social media certainly seems buoyed, and the Fear & Greed Index sentiment-tracking tool supports this, ticking up closer to “Neutral” vibes. Which is downright bullish compared to the “Extreme Fear” levels seen just recently.

What’s that old Wall Street saying? Not the Buffet one, the other one… “Bull markets are born on pessimism, grown on scepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria.”
Where’s the market at, then? Maybe somewhere between scepticism and optimism?
#Bitcoin Fear & Greed Index is almost Neutral!
The last time we went from Fear into Neutral we printed a huge green candle and broke out of the downtrend…
I see the same thing happening right now 🚀#BTC $BTC #Crypto #CryptoNews #BullishAF pic.twitter.com/Ne8LckaxT4
— Yurii (@CryptoYurii) December 22, 2021
Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves just yet, eh, “Yurii”? Still, perhaps the “smart money” (not financial advice) has been buying the recent dippage and continues to buy at these levels…
If I'd want to position myself well, I'd want to buy into #crypto at this stage.
The sentiment is still not the best, while many #altcoins are down a lot, some even 80% since their ATH.
The adoption is even growing and price-wise, those coins are in heavy support zones.
— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) December 21, 2021
… and that includes El Salvador (again)…
El Salvador celebrated the scarcity and the 21 million supply cap of #Bitcoin by buying 21 BTC on Dec. 21, 2021. https://t.co/dATL70Dq5C
— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) December 22, 2021
Top 10 overview
Here’s the state of play in the top 10 by market cap at press time, according to CoinGecko data.

That’s a top-10 “sea of green” on the 24-hour and weekly timeframes. Both XRP (+6.6%) and Cardano (ADA) (+7.4%) are having a good day, as is Terra (LUNA) (+7.3%), which is up more than 51% on the week.
“XRP Army” expectation is still high for a positive result in the Ripple Labs vs SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) legal stoush – set to resolve, potentially, in early 2022.
On this day, one year ago (Dec 22, 2020) SEC sued Ripple and two executives with conducting $1.3 billion unregistered securities offering👀
Retweet 🔄and show @SECGov and @GaryGensler how poorly they protected thousands of XRP investors in the US (and worldwide) @JohnEDeaton1 pic.twitter.com/bFRkAOTYkO
— XRP_Cro 🔥 AI / Gaming / DePIN (@stedas) December 22, 2021
Meanwhile, Cardano is building, creating partnerships and just relatively quietly going about its business as its native token ADA moves back above a key downwards-sloping trend line.
Well, hello $ADA. What are you up to? pic.twitter.com/oXBKutxMFV
— Dan Gambardello (@cryptorecruitr) December 22, 2021
Winners and losers: 11–100
Sweeping a market-cap range of about US$29.6 billion to US$1.2 billion in the rest of the top 100, let’s find some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time.
DAILY PUMPERS
• Near Protocol (NEAR), (market cap: US$6.9b) +34.3%
• Spell Token (SPELL), (mc: US$1.9b) +28.6%
• Cosmos (ATOM), (mc: US$7.7b) +21.2%
• Curve (CRV), (mc: US$2b) +21%
• Aave (AAVE), (mc: US$2.9b) +28%
The layer 1 blockchain Near Protocol has jumped in price on the back of an announcement it’s integrating Terra’s UST stablecoins into its network. And Cosmos has its own interoperability and integration narrative going on, too.
📣 @terra_money is partnering with @NEARProtocol and @auroraisnear!
This integration is made possible through a partnership with leading protocols @NearPad and @RoseOnAurora.
🌉 Users can bridge from Terra to Aurora via @Allbridge_io.
Learn more 🔽https://t.co/jwHK1jqECy
— NEAR Protocol (@NEARProtocol) December 21, 2021
SPELL, meanwhile, is still on a good run after a December 20 Gemini exchange listing announcement from Tyler Winklevoss.
DAILY SLUMPERS
There’s very little in the red in the top 100 right now, nevertheless, here are the five-worst performers at the time of writing.
• Link (LN), (market cap: US$1.25b) -5.3%
• Olympus (OHM), (mc: US$2.8b) -1.7%
• FTX Token (FTT), (mc: US$5.8b) -0.1%
• Leo Token (LEO), (mc: US$3.5b) -0.1%
• Iotex (IOTX), (mc: US$1.2b) -0.2%
Lower-cap winners and losers
Moving below the crypto unicorns (in some cases well below), here’s a selection catching our eye…
DAILY PUMPERS
• Ren Protocol (REN), (market cap: US$714m) +40%
• Yam (YAM), (mc: US$5.3m) +35%
• Fancy Games (FNC), (mc: US$29m) +24%
• Boson Protocol (BOSON), (mc: US$109.5m) +23%
• Aleph.im (ALEPH), (mc: US$60.5m) +21%
DAILY SLUMPERS
• Glitch Protcol (GLCH), (market cap: US$59.4m) -35%
• Mobius (MOBI), (mc: US$126.5m) -22%
• Jade Protocol (JADE), (mc: US$47m) -15%
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