Bitcoin (BTC) regained fresh ground on April 21 after bears failed to gain control of short-term price action overnight.
BTC/USD 1-day candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView
Trader: Holding $42,300 could open up path to $50,000
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD reaching new local highs of $42,455 on Bitstamp Thursday.
With the Wall Street open still to come, upward momentum meant that the pair was now at its highest since April 10. Wednesday’s opening bell had nonetheless been accompanied by bearish price pressure, and traders thus remained cautious about what could come next.
“If the market wants to see continuation, it has to crack that region around $42.3K for Bitcoin,” Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe told Twitter followers.
“This is also a daily breaker. If it breaks, I’m assuming a new test of $46K is around the corner and possibly $50k+.”
Much stood in the way of a trip to $50,000 and reclaiming it as support. As Cointelegraph reported, in addition to various long-term moving averages, the yearly open, along with whale selling habits, have all kept bulls from exiting the 2022 trading range.
“So far, so good for Bitcoin,” Van de Poppe reasoned in his latest update, noting that the U.S. dollar currency index (DXY) was continuing to retrace in what is traditionally a boon for crypto markets.
“I don’t think the upside is done, as the $DXY is showing weakness.”
Also emboldened at the prospect of stronger BTC price performance coming up was Blockchain protocol Terra, now famous as one of the largest Bitcoin whales after purchasing nearly 45,000 BTC in 2022.
In a tweet on the day, the firm’s official account claimed that Bitcoin was in line to “get spicy,” hinting that it did not expect continuation of sideways price action.
Things are gonna get spicy real soon.
— Terra (UST) 🌍 Powered by LUNA 🌕 (@terra_money) April 21, 2022
Whales not in the mood for “up only” bets
Looking at whales’ movements more broadly, however, there remained a lack of a convincing trend.
As trader and analyst Rekt Capital noted on the day, buying and selling among Bitcoin’s largest hodlers remains caught in a narrow range.
“Number of unique addresses holding min. 10K BTC has been increasing since Feb ’21,” he commented alongside data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode.
“That said, 1st signs of a Lower High forming as some whales offloaded positions at ~$43K. Whales generally accumulating but some sold lately. Could the Higher Low get revisited?”
10,000 BTC wallet numbers vs. BTC/USD annotated chart. Source: Rekt Capital/ Twitter
Addresses with at least 10,000 BTC peaked in 2018, with the bear market bottom of December that year causing a heavy reallocation.
Source: Cointelegraph
