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(Kitco News) - Consolidation remains the name of the game in the crypto market on the first Monday of April as prices largely traded sideways while Dogecoin (DOGE) got an unexpected boost when the Twitter blue bird logo was swapped for DOGE, a move some called an April Fool’s Day prank that nevertheless helped push the altcoin 27% higher.
U.S. equities traded mixed on the day, with the S&P and Dow closing the day up 0.37% and 0.98%, respectively, while the Nasdaq finished in the red down 0.27%.
Data provided by TradingView shows that an early morning effort by Bitcoin (BTC) bulls to push its price higher ran into stiff resistance at $28,500, which led to a pullback to support at $27,900 which has provided a solid level of support since March 20.
BTC/USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
The weakening momentum of the crypto market was seen in the futures market, with April Bitcoin futures prices “a bit weaker in U.S. trading on Monday after hitting a contract high last week,” according to Kitco senior technical analyst Jim Wyckoff.
“BC bulls still have the solid overall near-term technical advantage,” Wyckoff said. “The price uptrend has paused but remains in place on the daily bar chart. The path of least resistance for prices remains sideways to higher.”
Analysts from Eight Global also highlighted the ongoing sideways price action for the crypto market in their Monday market update, saying, “Not much has changed on the Bitcoin chart since last week.”
“It would be bullish if the weekly 8EMA [exponential moving average] catches up with the price here in one or two weeks, rather than the price going down to test it, giving it a platform to bounce from through the resistance,” Eight Global wrote.
BTC/USD 1-week chart. Source: Eight Global
But caution is warranted, as “a tower top-like candlestick pattern” has appeared on the chart. “As long as any pullback from here finds support at around the 34W EMA things look in favor of a bullish continuation,” the analysts said. “Weekly RSI looks clean and has some headroom to run.”
Looking at the 1-day chart, the previous day’s candle managed to close above the 8EMA but started to dip under that level shortly after, taking out the green ascending trendline support.
BTC/USD 1-day chart. Source: Eight Global
“Channel-wise price has merely tapped the EQ,” the analysts wrote. “With the 34EMA coming in hot from below, [we] would not be surprised to see the price visit the channel bottom when it is in sync with the 34EMA, testing both for support in one move.”
Keeping with a cautious approach, Eight Global recommended a “focus on the $28,500-$29,000 resistance, the $27,000 (channel EQ) and $26,700 (channel bottom) support levels in anticipation of reading the next move.”
Altcoins trade sideways
Aside from Dogecoin, there were a handful of tokens in the top 200 that managed to post double-digit gains on Monday while the broader altcoin market was in the red.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
Icon (ICX) saw the second-best performance of the day with a gain of 15.18%, followed by a 14.88% increase for Solar (SXP) and an 11.94% gain for MobileCoin (MOB).
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.05 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 38%.
