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(Kitco News) - Little changed for the cryptocurrency market over the weekend as Bitcoin (BTC) continues to trade near $29,000 while investors await this week’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) reading and its implications on interest rates.
Stocks climbed higher on Monday amid conflicting statements from Federal Reserve officials, with Fed Governor Michelle Boman saying she supports raising rates again to help bring down inflation while New York Fed President John Willams said, “I think we’re pretty close to what a peak rate would be.”
At the market close, the S&P, Dow, and Nasdaq all finished in the green, up 0.90%, 1.16%, and 0.61%, respectively.
Data provided by TradingView shows that Bitcoin bulls remain locked in a battle with bears for control of the price action, with bears briefly hammering the top crypto to a low of $28,666 near midday before bulls managed to push it back above support at $29,000.
BTC/USD Chart by TradingView
“August Bitcoin futures prices [traded] slightly higher in early U.S. trading Monday,” according to Kitco senior technical analyst Jim Wyckoff, who noted that otherwise, there is “Not much new lately.”
Bitcoin futures 1-day chart. Source: Kitco
“Prices are in a sideways and choppy grind,” Wyckoff said. “Bulls and bears are on a level overall near-term technical playing field at present. That suggests more lackluster, sideways and choppy trading in the near term.”
According to MN Trading analyst Gunter Lackmann, “BTC price has been creeping closer to the discount area (<50%) of its current dealing range.”
BTC/USD 1-day chart. Source: MN Trading
“Since the beginning of this year, we had impulsive moves to the upside, leaving people not already in longs far behind,” Lackmann said. This was followed by “pullbacks from the highs to just under the 50% mark, scaring late longers out of their positions, and giving bears/people who missed out on the move up hope for even lower prices, just to start the next impulsive way from right under the 50% threshold.”
He noted that “it was a fair value gap in the discount zone” in March “that marked the end of [that] pullback,” while a “bullish order block in the discount in June” marked the bottom during that time period.
“This time around we see a fairly large fair value gap higher up in the discount zone (just like in March),” he said. “Based on this, if the strong/impulsive uptrend in BTC is to continue, I would not be surprised to get an accelerated move down towards 27.7 - 28.2k, then the next leg up towards 34k within the next couple of weeks.”
According to MN Trading founder Michaël van de Poppe, the ongoing sideways price action presents a good opportunity to accumulate tokens if possible, as early bull markets are often dominated by the lingering effects of bear markets, which keep sentiment, and prices, lower.
It's the boring time.
— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) August 7, 2023
The time to sit on your hands, accumulate some more if you can, and just simply wait.
No need to evaluate everytime, as you'll probably hear lots of bear / bull arguments.
In the first stage of the bull, people will continue to be bearish.
Altcoins in the red
The majority of tokens in the top 200 traded in the red on Monday, with only a handful of tokens managing to post any notable gains.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
Livepeer (LVP) led the gainers with an increase of 37%, followed by a 12.51% gain for UniBot (UNIBOT) and a 6.73% increase for Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Yield Guild Games (YGG) saw the biggest downturn with a loss of 24.25%, while API3 fell 17.32% and XDC Network (XDC) dropped 6.64%.
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.16 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 48.8%.
