(Kitco News) - It was a rather uneventful week in the cryptocurrency market as far as price action is concerned, as the vast majority of tokens in the top 100 deviated less than 5% in either direction over the past seven days while the U.S. dollar rose to its highest level in 20 years.
Data from TradingView shows that after climbing higher throughout the early trading hours on Friday to hit a daily high at $20,460, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) dumped back below $20,000 in the afternoon session, putting bears on their heels as they scrambled to defend the psychologically important support level.
BTC/USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
The lack of activity in the market was touched on in the morning Bitcoin brief from Senior Market Analyst Jim Wyckoff, who noted that “Quieter and sideways trading is featured this week.”
Now is not the time put investments on autopilot; however, as “history shows the month of September can be rocky for the financial markets,” Wycoff warned. “Look for more volatility in cryptos in the coming weeks. Bitcoin bulls need fresh power to break a price downtrend that is still in place on the daily chart, albeit just barely.”
Important levels to watch
Further insight into the current price action for Bitcoin from a lower time frame perspective was offered by independent market analyst and pseudonymous Twitter user il Capo of Crypto, who posted the following chart noting that BTC broke through the “main bearish trendline.”
BTC/USD 15-minute chart. Source: Twitter
According to il Capo, a “bullish confirmation for the short squeeze would be a break of the $20,700-$20,800 resistance,” which could result in a price increase to $22,500-$20,800.”
On the flip side, for the short squeeze to be invalidated, BTCs price would need to break down below $19,500, while the “main confirmation would be a clean break of $19,000.”
As for now, the Bitcoin price continues to range trade between these two scenarios, so only time will tell how it plays out.
A boring week for altcoins
As mentioned in the open, there was little action of note in the altcoin market as the wider crypto ecosystem awaits a major development, such as the approaching Ethereum Merge.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
The best performers on the 24-hour chart include an 18% increase for Voyager (VGX), a 10.28% gain for ABBC Coin (ABBC), and a trio of 8.3% gains for Yearn.finance (YFI), Optimism (OP) and 1inch Network (1inch).
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $972 billion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 39%.
