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(Kitco News) - The crypto market slid deeper into correction territory on Thursday as Bitcoin (BTC) now finds itself fighting to hold onto support at $28,000 while numerous altcoins have recorded double-digit declines over the past 24 hours.
Stocks, likewise, trended down after weekly jobless claims in the U.S. came in higher than expected, while existing home sales showed a decline of 2.4% in March from the month prior. At the close of markets, the major indices were all in the red, with the S&P down 0.60%, the Dow down 0.33%, and the Nasdaq recording a loss of 0.80%.
Data provided by TradingView shows that Bitcoin bulls were unable to defend the $29,000 support level, which resulted in bears dropping the top crypto to a daily low of $28,037 on Thursday afternoon before dip buyers bid it back above $28,300.
BTC/USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
The downward move for BTC led to April Bitcoin futures prices trading lower again on Thursday, according to Kitco senior technical analyst Jim Wyckoff, who observed that “Bulls are fading after prices hit a contract high last Sunday.”
As a result of the weakness seen over the past two days, the “price uptrend on the daily bar chart is now in jeopardy and the bulls need to show fresh power soon to keep it alive and to keep their overall near-term technical advantage,” Wyckoff warned.
A look at how BTC price action could play out in the event that it continues to correct to lower support levels was provided by DeFi analyst Yoddha, who posted the following chart and suggested that the market is simply undergoing “a healthy pullback.”
$BTC
— Yoddha (@CryptoYoddha) April 20, 2023
The price is sitting above the April open right now. And HTF structure is still in an uptrend.
A healthy pullback in my opinion. #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/Btgg4fXiA8
Meanwhile, technical analyst Mags has spotted an interesting fractal pattern between the current market structure and the structure that was seen back in 2019 that suggests Bitcoin could consolidate a little longer in this region before ultimately heading higher.
#Bitcoin ??$BTC is finding some resistance at the base which it broke down & printed bear market lows.
— Mags (@thescalpingpro) April 20, 2023
We saw similar rejection in 2019 but once the base was reclaimed price went up by +147%#crypto #btc pic.twitter.com/7tCESq8aOy
And crypto trader Kaleo posted the following tweet highlighting the tricky nature of following the crowd when investing in cryptocurrencies and sought to simplify matters by focusing on a BTC price target of $40,000.
#Bitcoin / $BTC
— K A L E O (@CryptoKaleo) April 20, 2023
One month ago, when Bitcoin was $27K - half my feed was convinced that there was a chance we'd see $1M in the next 90 days...
Today, at $28.5K, half my feed is convinced the top is in and we're heading to new lows.
My answer to both? $40K is still a magnet. pic.twitter.com/GXtQrUNarl
Carnage for the altcoins
It was a sea of red across the altcoin market as less than ten tokens in the top 200 recorded gains for the day while numerous projects saw double-digit losses.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
Polymesh (POLYX) and Polymath (POLY) were the two notable standouts, with gains of 61.25% and 21.62%, respectively, while Blur (BLUR), Rocket Pool (RPL) and Zilliqa (ZIL) recorded losses in excess of 10%.
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.19 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 45.8%.
