(Kitco News) - Crypto prices trended higher in Tuesday's trading as the market looks to close the month of January with its best performance since 2013 and investors across all markets await tomorrow's interest rate announcement from the Fed – which is expected to raise the benchmark rate 25 basis points and bring the federal funds rate to a target range of 4.5% to 4.75%.
U.S. stocks also rose amid corporate earnings releases and the start of the latest Federal Open Market Committee’s policy meeting, with the S&P, Dow and Nasdaq closing the day in positive territory, up 1.46%, 1.09% and 1.67%, respectively.
Data provided by TradingView shows that after Bitcoin (BTC) hit a low of $22,510 late on Monday, bulls managed to reverse the downtrend to steadily push its price higher on Tuesday, hitting an intraday high of $23,233 before pulling back to support at $23,000.
BTC/USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
The pullback late on Monday was the result of “more profit taking and a routine downside correction after the market hit a five-month high” earlier in the day, according to Kitco senior technical analyst Jim Wyckoff.
As it stands now, “BC bulls still have the firm overall near-term technical advantage as a price uptrend is in place on the daily bar chart,” Wychoff said. “The path of least resistance for prices in the near term remains sideways to higher.”
$25k, a pullback, and then a push to new all-time highs
Veteran analyst Peter Brandt also thinks that BTC has more upside potential after spotting a breakout from an “extremely rare” technical pattern known as a “double-walled fulcrum pattern.”
The bottom in $BTC is a double walled fulcrum pattern. Extremely rare. The 2X target is mid 25's. pic.twitter.com/NfffzbniO5
— Peter Brandt (@PeterLBrandt) January 29, 2023
Brandt elaborated on this formation in his weekly crypto outlook video posted on Jan. 28, expressing optimism about Bitcoin being able to climb back to its all-time high (ATH) of $68,789 by mid-2023.
The veteran analyst suggested that in the near term, Bitcoin will hit $25,000 before correcting to $19,000. After that, it will resume its ascent to its previous ATH. Brandt noted that the one caveat to this outlook is the volatility of the crypto market which can make it difficult to predict prices in the current market conditions.
A similar outlook for the near future was provided by market analyst Rekt Capital, who posted the following tweet suggesting that Bitcoin could soon find itself consolidating between $20,000 and $23,400.
Not long left until the new #BTC Monthly Candle Close$BTC is hovering below ~$23400 resistance
— Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) January 31, 2023
By 1M Closing below this resistance...
BTC could begin consolidation within the ~$20000-$23400 range
Through consolidation, ~$20000 Range Low could get tagged#Crypto #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/PnICq0lg7z
The prospect of a pullback was also cited in the recent Alpha report from Bitfinex, which noted that “Although current BTC performance suggests that the bottom might already be in, we are not out of treacherous waters yet, as we have not seen a full year pass since the 2022 bear market rally.”
According to Bitfinex, “The trend tells us that the net change post one year of the second rally was negative. Thus, traders and investors need to be careful before that time period is over.”
The report also noted that historical data “suggests that with short-term holders (STH) selling now at profit, we can expect them to FOMO in later and much higher while long-term holders (LTH) continue to hold massive spot positions even if the price decreases from here. So, the P&L for the entire market is a net positive for January 2023, the first time since April 2022. If this continues, it looks increasingly bullish for BTC.”
Altcoin market continues to trend higher
The altcoin market saw a majority of tokens in the top 200 post gains in trading on Tuesday as the return of bullish conditions has investors placing bets on their favorite crypto projects.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
MobileCoin (MOB) was the top performer on the day, posting a gain of 45.11% to trade at $1.58, followed by a 28.69% increase for Mask Network (MASK) and a 24.2% gain for dYdX (DYDX).
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.052 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 42.3%.
