Focus
Cryptos trade flat to end an enforcement-heavy week, Bitcoin holds $26,500
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(Kitco News) - Friday brought little change to the overall picture of the cryptocurrency markets as prices traded sideways following a week of enforcement actions by the Securities and Exchange Commission, rampant FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) on social media, and a dip-buying opportunity for those who remain optimistic on the long-term outlook of the market.
Equities edged higher to close out the week as the majority of investors are anticipating a pause in interest rate hikes at next week's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, with the market pricing in a 70% chance that the Federal Reserve will halt its aggressive rate hiking campaign.
At the market close, the S&P, Dow and Nasdaq were all in the green, up 0.11%, 0.13%, and 0.16%, respectively.
Data provided by TradingView shows that the price range for Bitcoin (BTC) continues to tighten, increasing the likelihood of a spike in volatility that will put the top crypto back on an uptrend or force it back into bear market territory. At the time of writing, BTC is holding above support at $26,500.
BTC/USD Chart by TradingView
“July Bitcoin futures prices are again near steady in early U.S. trading Friday,” said Kitco senior technical analyst Jim Wyckoff, who added that “Trading has turned quieter and sideways late this week.”
Bitcoin futures 1-day chart. Source: Kitco
“This ‘collapse in volatility’ portends a bigger price move on the horizon,” Wyckoff warned. “The bears do have the slight overall near-term technical advantage as a gentle price downtrend is still in place on the daily bar chart.”
The resilience of the top crypto in the face of the enforcement actions by the SEC was addressed in a note shared with Kitco Crypto by David Lifchitz, managing partner and chief investment officer at ExoAlpha, who said that “Bitcoin has been relatively unmoved,” while numerous low-cap altcoins were “more badly hurt and haven’t yet recovered.”
“This shows that Bitcoin and Ether, the two main cryptos, are perceived as immune to the SEC attacks,” Lifchitz said. “No matter the outcome of this arm wrestling between cryptos and the SEC, as long as large jurisdictions around the world welcome cryptos, cryptos are here to stay.”
For now, “Bitcoin remains in hibernation as institutional investors have still not come back following the 2022 bear market and collapse of FTX,” he said. “The argument that comes back often from these institutional investors these days is that they see cryptos as a huge beta play (as it was in the heydays of 2017 for example) and are waiting for them to start moving again to chase them, and while they are not moving: what’s the point of taking on so much risk when US T-Bills yield 5% ‘risk-free’.”
As for the price level to watch in the near term for Bitcoin, MN Trading founder Michaël van de Poppe continues to highlight $26,800 as the resistance level to overcome to signal a continuation of the uptrend for Bitcoin.
Still slowly waiting for a breakout on #Bitcoin.
— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) June 9, 2023
Breaking and flipping $26,800 is a continuation trigger, as we've just created a higher low and are grinding upwards.
Needs to have acceleration. pic.twitter.com/UhxBwMFrQs
Consolidaton for altcoins
The altcoin market was evenly split between winners and losers on Friday, with all the tokens in the top 200 trading within plus or minus 7.5% of the previous day’s price.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
Pepe (PEPE) saw the biggest gain, with its price increasing 6.71% to trade at $0.000001158, while Storj (STORJ) and Wilder World (WILD) recorded losses of 7.5%.
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.096 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 46.7%.
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