Crypto and Stocks Soften Ahead of Fed Rate Hike, But XRP, ALGO, and LDO Look “Interesting”

Crypto and stock markets continue to correct, but that doesn't mean all investment opportunities are gone.

Prices remain weak in the market as traders await a statement from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on the magnitude of the next interest rate hike.

Right now, the market consensus is for a 0.75bp rate hike and a small number of analysts are betting on 1%.

Stocks also look set to end the day in the red, with the Dow down 0.75%, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq posting losses of 0.79% and 0.64%. Bitcoin continues to fight what appears to be a losing battle at the $19,000 mark, while Ether (ETH) has dug a little deeper into its post-merger decline hitting an intraday low at $1,329 .

While BTC, Ether, and altcoins are not making any notable moves that challenge the current downtrend, from a market structure and technical analysis perspective, a few interesting developments are occurring.

Lido (LDO) has corrected alongside Ethereum now that the merger trade fervor has died down, but the asset is currently trading in what some would say is a bull flag. While bulls and ETH traders could have taken profits on their long Ether positions, the merger was a success, stakers and validators are still pulling altcoin returns and the fundamentals that made investors bullish on Ether remain present.

Ideally, if DApps and active Ether users continue to grow and traders continue to accumulate, then in an otherwise down market, yield should be a capital magnet, right?

LDO/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView

From a market structure perspective, Ripple (XRP) looks interesting, and there's been a ton of social discussion about it on Twitter lately. Following the usual hopium-based narrative, members of the XRP army suggested that if XRP beat...