Bitcoin climbs above $22.7K, helping lift the total crypto market cap back above $1 trillion
(Kitco News) – The crypto market initiated its next rally late in the trading day Friday as Bitcoin (BTC) climbed back above $22,700 for the first time in over four months after trading sideways for the past week. The rally helped to lift the total crypto market cap back above $1 trillion.
And the positive momentum wasn’t just limited to cryptos as the stock market trended higher throughout the day, leading to a finish in the green for the S&P, Dow and Nasdaq, which closed the day up 1.89%, 1.00%, and 2.66%, respectively.
Data from TradingView shows that after a brief early morning dip below support at $21,000, Bitcoin bulls charged higher in the afternoon session to push the top crypto to a daily high of $22,775, a price that was last seen over four months ago on Sept. 13.
BTC/USD 1-day chart. Source: TradingView
The possibility of a move higher was forecasted in the morning Bitcoin update from Kitco senior technical analyst Jim Wyckoff, who highlighted that “A bull flag or bullish pennant pattern [appeared] to be forming on the daily chart.”
Based on the chart setup, Wyckoff determined that Bitcoin bulls “have the firm overall near-term technical advantage amid a price uptrend in place on the daily bar chart. The path of least resistance for prices remains sideways to higher.”
Market analyst Rekt Capital highlighted that Friday’s afternoon rally moved Bitcoin closer to its 200-day moving average (MA). Traditionally, a climb back above the 200 MA has been a clear signal that the bear market is over and a new bull cycle has begun.
#BTC is now just +10% away from revisiting the 200-week MA (orange)$BTC #Crypto #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/z6NUc9zv8q
— Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) January 20, 2023
Eight Global founder Michaël van de Poppe posted the following tweet offering a realistic projection of how things could play out over the course of 2023.
This year we’ll probably have a window of 2-4 months in which the markets are having a strong relief rally.
Might actually be the case right now already.
A rally towards $35K is therefore possible for #Bitcoin.
Be ready, maximize, accumulate this year and you’ll be golden.
— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) January 20, 2023
And technical analyst Gert van Lagen showed what was possible if Bitcoin goes into full-on beast mode and finally has the blow off top that many crypto investors have been anticipating since early 2021.
$BTC [1D]: Potential form of incoming super macro blowoff top I’m expecting.
The implications of the 1-2 leading diagonal are this severe.
On the way up it’ll be important to analyze the actual price waves, to assess whether price has had its five waves already or not.#Btc pic.twitter.com/c2kDIGMlVm
— Gert van Lagen (@GertvanLagen) January 20, 2023
Altcoins surge higher
The afternoon rally in BTC turned out to be a boon for the altcoin market as prices across the board surged higher to the delight of crypto investors around the world.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
At the time of writing, the biggest gainer on the day is Hedera (HBAR), which has climbed 33.1% to $0.0779, followed by a 22.64% increase for Aptos (APT), and a 19.35% gain for Render Token (RNDR).
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.027 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 41.7%.
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