(Kitco News) - Crypto prices continue to show resilience in the face of mounting economic headwinds. The 10-year Treasury note is now trading north of 4% as investors anticipate a return to aggressive actions from the Fed, which has struggled to get a handle on inflation.
Traditional markets fell under pressure at the market open but underwent an afternoon revival that helped lift the major indices into the green, with the S&P, Dow and Nasdaq finishing the day up 0.76%, 1.05%, and 0.73%, respectively.
Data from TradingView shows that Bitcoin (BTC) also faced bearish pressure in the early trading hours, hitting a daily low of $23,363 before backup arrived for the bulls and helped lift the top crypto back above support at $23,500, leaving the price relatively unchanged on the 24-hour chart.
BTC/USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
Kitco senior technical analyst Jim Wyckoff noted in his morning update that “March Bitcoin futures prices [were] slightly lower in early U.S. trading Thursday,” and said that “Bulls still have the slight overall near-term technical advantage as a price uptrend is still in place on the daily chart, but just barely.”
If they want to maintain their advantage, “Bulls need to show fresh power soon to keep the uptrend alive and to keep their technical edge,” Wyckoff warned.
Signs that the crypto market is gaining strength
Evidence of Bitcoin’s resilience was provided by market analyst Caleb Franzen, who posted the following chart highlighting that Bitcoin has managed to stay above the short-term holder realized price, which is a bullish sign.
#Bitcoin is still trading above the short-term holder realized price, which has a positive slope & is currently valued at $19.9k.
— Caleb Franzen (@CalebFranzen) March 2, 2023
This is the primary on-chain datapoint that I'm using as my line in the sand for #BTC
Price > STHRP = bullish
Price < STHRP = bearish pic.twitter.com/IONqUhIAfC
Meanwhile, crypto trader and analyst Moustache has spotted a promising fractal pattern on the Bitcoin chart that shows a 2017-style blow-off top rally may be in the works.
#Ethereum #Altcoins
— ????????????????? ?? (@el_crypto_prof) March 2, 2023
One can dream. I can't get away from this chart.
Similarities to 2016-2017 are still outstanding.
Is it just taking more than twice as long?
Personally my preferred scenario - BlowOffTop.??
Altcoins, $BTC - everything would fly more than you can imagine. pic.twitter.com/vaqWkKageb
And insight into what may happen in the event that bears gain the upper hand in the short-term was provided by market analyst Michaël van de Poppe, who highlighted the mid-$20,000 range as an area to keep an eye on for a possible long position.
Waiting game for #Bitcoin.
— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) March 2, 2023
Couldn't break through resistance and #altcoins start to drop hard.
If #Bitcoin doesn't hold $23.2K, I'm assuming we'll test mid $22K before going anything up. pic.twitter.com/5ixBMCiutE
Altcoins in a downtrend
As noted in the tweet from Poppe, the altcoin market fell under pressure on Thursday, with only a couple dozen tokens in the top 200 managing to stay in the green while the vast majority recorded daily losses.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
Notable gainers include Threshold (T), STEPN (GMT), and Keep Network (KEEP), which recorded increases of 14.03%, 11.93%, and 10.31%, respectively.
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.069 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 42.4%.
