Recovery, then steady as she goes, or so goes another average week of Bitcoin range bound trading. The good news is that BTC did rebound from a $9,300 dip that weighed heavy on Bitcoin enthusiasts, who had begun to give up hope of even the possibility of another major rally toward an All-Time-High (ATH). Such was not to be, but the crypto gods had no prevailing reason to go more south either. No regulators were beating the negative drum, as long as you ignore EU officials pounding on Facebook. Other than that, VanEck broke ranks to inaugurate a BTC Trust for “Big Boys”, but by the end of the week, there was no consensus on how the near term might play out.
Analysts are now getting numbed out by the repetitive nature of Bitcoin’s travails over the past two months. The amazing part of the last few weeks is that Bitcoin price behavior has continued to paint a technical picture right out of every textbook on the art of “Technical Analysis”, only to shift gears at the last possible moment, as if taunting the entire profession, thumbing its nose, and saying, “You really do not understand me!” This minute-by-minute chart, courtesy of CryptoNews, is a case in point:
In one single day depicted above, Bitcoin displays a textbook definition of a trend, gradually forming higher highs and then higher lows, on a gradual trek up the pricing scoreboard. After three successive repetitions, it loses steam, settles into ranging or profit taking around $10,500. On Friday, BTC made a similar climb toward $11,000, only to pull back to $10,300. On Saturday, it traced the above print, toyed with going higher, but, once again, it pulled back. It now seems content to rest at $10,400.
Over the past two months, this ranging scenario has gradually narrowed from $9,000 to $12,000 to roughly $9,300 to $10,800. Muhammed Ali with his “rope-a-dope” strategy comes to mind – let the market beat you up until it tires, and then put on a show, but in the meantime, everyone is left wondering, not knowing to guess up or down. In situations like this, however, the “easy guess” is to point down. The plethora of outlandish upward predictions have dwindled from sight, although there is an occasional $20,00 and up guesstimate that comes over the transom.
The analyst community, without a consensus narrative to provide direction, although most will agree that several fundamental drivers are still developing for the long run, tends to overreact to the least little bit of news in the crypto mainstream. The “joke” last week was that everyone got exercised over Google search volume trends related to BTC. After further analysis, it appeared that a hacking group in Romania was attempting a rather outlandish, though clever, attempt to manipulate Bitcoin price behavior. The market ostensibly rode that wave for the entire week, but never gave up ground.
There has been enough movement in large “Whale” accounts to be worrisome, as well, but most of these very large account addresses belong to exchanges, their major “cold wallet” sanctuaries for the bulk of capital residing on their respective platforms. In one case, roughly 94,500 Bitcoins valued at over $1 billion was moved about at 3 am in the morning from 15 addresses down to one, a typical move when an acquisition or major transfer of ownership takes place. The transactions could have very well been related to the Coindesk buyout of Xapo’s custody services, but speculation ran from being related to the Bakkt exchange or a Chinese Ponzi scheme fraud, and everything in between.
The fear, of course, is that a major correction is in the offing, perhaps, down to as low as $7,500. Can such a drop occur before bulls retaliate? Bitcoin has defied the odds of late, but anything is possible in Crypto-Land. Bears, however, cannot seem to break $9,300 for now, but the near term is anyone’s guess. Most analysts do think that Bitcoin bargain-hunting days have long passed for loading up on cheap BTC, but time will tell.