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(Kitco News) - Prices across the cryptocurrency market traded lower on Wednesday as the added momentum from multiple spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETF filings over the past two weeks began to subside while concerns related to the health of the global economy persist.
Equities markets were mixed as traders reduced their activity after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said consecutive interest-rate hikes are still on the table, with the central bank wanting to avoid doing too little to bring down inflation. At the market close, the S&P and Dow finished in the red, down 0.04% and 0.22%, respectively, while the Dow gained 0.27%.
Data from TradingView shows that Bitcoin’s price slid lower throughout the trading day, hitting a low of $29,960 in the afternoon before bulls managed to bid it back above the $30,000 support level. BTC continues to oscillate within the $29,800 - $31,400 trading range that was established last week.
BTC/USD Chart by TradingView
Evidence of the declining momentum for BTC was reflected in July Bitcoin futures prices, which traded “a bit weaker in early U.S. trading Wednesday” after reaching a contract high earlier in the week, according to Kitco senior technical analyst Jim Wyckoff.
Bitcoin futures 1-day chart. Source: Kitco
“The bulls have the solid overall near-term technical advantage as a steep price uptrend is in place on the daily bar chart,” Wyckoff said. “A bullish pennant pattern has also formed on the daily chart. Bulls have momentum to suggest more price upside in the near term.”
While the price action looks as if it could finish the month of June flat, Markus Thielen, head of research at Matrixport, suggested that things could soon start to ramp back up as “Bitcoin prices tend to rally during the month of July.”
“Throughout the last decade, Bitcoin has rallied by an average of +11% in July, with 7 out of 10 observations showing positive returns (70%),” Thielen said. “In July, the previous three years have seen returns of +27%, +20%, and +24%, respectively.”
Bitcoin performance by month. Source: Matrixport
“While summer tends to be a period of consolidation for Bitcoin, a strong July tends to be followed by a mediocre August and a selloff in September,” Thielen added. “Based on our year-end target of $45,000, we see Bitcoin prices rallying towards $35,000 before selling off and retracing to $30,000 before attempting the $40,000 level.”
For Luuk Koolen, an analyst with MN Trading, the recent push to a yearly high, followed by a pullback into consolidation, suggests that a “liquidity sweep” is occurring, “and it would be logical for the price to correct to lower levels.”
BTC/USD 1-day chart. Source: MN Trading
“Ideally, I would like to see BTC bounce around $28k and then continue to make new highs from there,” Koolen said. “However, there are no strong support levels on the chart that are close to the current price. The only significant support level is deeper in the form of the daily demand zone at $26.2-26.7k. I prefer not to see the price retrace that deeply as it would indicate weakness to me.”
Widespread pullback for altcoins
The declining momentum for cryptos was also evident in the altcoin market, as all but three tokens in the top 200 recorded losses on the day.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
BitDAO (BIT) was the only token to post a gain worth noting, with the price of BIT increasing by 6.9% to trade at $0.392. The popular meme token Pepe (PEPE) and the layer-one project Conflux (CFX) were the hardest hit by the pullback, with their prices falling by 12.5%.
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.16 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 50.5%.
