(Kitco News) - Thursday got off to a slow start in the crypto market before an afternoon rally led to gains across the board, lifting the spirits of crypto traders who were starting to accept the possibility of a significant pullback.
And it wasn’t just the crypto market that saw positive moves as the major stock market indices snapped a five-day losing streak to post positive gains despite ongoing concerns about continued interest rate hikes and the possibility of a recession. At the close of markets, the S&P, Dow and Nasdaq all finished in the green, up 0.75%, 0.55%, and 1.13%, respectively.
Data from TradingView shows that after hovering near support at $16,830 in early trading on Thursday, Bitcoin (BTC) price underwent a midday rally that pushed the top crypto to a daily high of $17,302 before it entered a consolidation pattern around $17,200.
BTC/USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
Despite the move higher, Bitcoin remains in “a sideways and choppy grind” according to Kitco senior technical analyst Jim Wyckoff, who highlighted that “Bulls and bears are now on a level overall near-term technical playing field.”
The current price action is providing little insight into what comes next for Bitcoin, meaning “The direction in which BTC prices break out of the present trading range will very likely be the direction of the next trending price move,” according to Wyckoff.
Signs of short-term strength
Additional insight into the price action for the top crypto was provided by Marcus Sotiriou, Market Analyst at the digital asset broker GlobalBlock, who highlighted the fact that “Bitcoin has held $16,800 despite the S&P 500 dropping significantly this week, which could be a sign of strength in the short term.”
Sotiriou noted that the mid-point of the current trading range for Bitcoin is $16,900 and warned about the possibility of more downside ahead due to the fact that BTC “has closed multiple 4 hours below this key mid-level of the range.”
“This is a bearish sign because multiple closes below support, on the 4 hour time frame, suggests it will continue to fall,” he said. “In addition, there is a key upwards sloping trendline that, if broken, could give an additional indication that we could revisit the low of $15,600.”
This concern may have been negated by Bitcoin’s move on Thursday, with Sotiriou noting that “The bullish case for the short term would be a reclaim of the $16,900 level,” which bulls have successfully achieved.
The positive outlook was further reinforced by Eight Global founder Michaël van de Poppe, who posted the following chart outlining a continuation higher as long as BTC stays above $17,000.
There we go, very comparable price action to earlier.
— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) December 8, 2022
Expecting continuation for #Bitcoin as long as we stay above $17K. pic.twitter.com/y4W285TUbi
Altcoins rally on the back of Bitcoin
The wider altcoin market was a sea of green following the midday rally, with all but a handful of tokens in the top 200 seeing positive gains on the day.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
The biggest moves include a 10.29% increase for Ocean Protocol (OCEAN), an 8.3% gain for Trust Wallet Token (TWT), and a 7.56% gain for WOO Network (WOO).
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $858 billion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 38.5%.
