Bitcoin Holds in a Tight Range as Analyst Eyes a Potential ‘Interesting Week’ for BTC
Bitcoin (BTC) hovered around $43,000 on Jan. 17 as “boring” price action combined with signs that the market might be stabilizing.
Leverage breaks from all-time highs
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed that the BTC/USD pair remained firmly within its established trading range of $40,000 to $45,000.
With few surprises expected thanks to the Wall Street holiday, traders took the opportunity to call for a no-nonsense approach to targeting altcoins.
Bitcoin is down to a few hundred dollars! Quick, someone come up with a narrative for this incredible crash and spread it around the media and twitter!
(This is sarcasm, nothing is happening, Bitcoin is sideways and boring)
— The Wolf Of All Streets (@scottmelker) January 17, 2022
Bitcoin is down a few hundred dollars! Quick, someone come up with a narrative for this unbelievable accident and get it out there in the media and on Twitter!
(This is sarcasm, nothing happens, Bitcoin is sideways and boring)
Meanwhile, popular analyst William Clemente noted that Bitcoin is bouncing along an ascending trend line this month, approaching a turning point soon as part of a wedge build.
“Should be an interesting week,” forecast.
Beyond the spot price, the data showed that the composition of the market was still employing leverage close to the all-time high, which only started to decline in the second week of January.
Such prevalence of leverage previously raised concerns that a liquidity cascade could become even more real, with a significant move up or down affecting traders.
“Bitcoin’s highly increased leverage ratio which has been at an all-time high for a few days shows concerns that a massive spike in volatility will follow,” warned commentator Vince Prince that day.
“Technically, if Bitcoin breaks the $40,000 level, this will trigger a large number of stop losses.”
Cardano stands out among altcoins
Meanwhile, on the topic of altcoins, some moves departed from the flat performance seen more broadly.
The top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap were led by Cardano (ADA), which notably bucked the sideways trend to post daily gains of almost 9% at the time of writing. This put the ADA/USD pair at a three-week high.
“Crucially, market psychology is at work again on $ADA,” summarized Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe.
“The last few weeks, the sentiment was comparable to a graveyard and the expectations were that it would go south. Now, the sentiment is changing and the hype is coming back.”
Further down, Litecoin (LTC) made 4.5% gains in a short respite for hodlers.
Litecoin’s friend intervened, told him life was worth living and said “think of your family.”
Litecoin said “NOT TODAY” and stepped back from the ledge.
Another bounce at strong support. A break of the blue resistance should send this flying. Not there yet. https://t.co/CvJtodHwNB pic.twitter.com/VOC5psrUhF
— The Wolf Of All Streets (@scottmelker) January 17, 2022
“Another bounce off strong support. A break of blue resistance should send flying. Not yet,” added LTC/USD trader, analyst and podcast host Scott Melker.