(Kitco News) – Bitcoin (BTC) price briefly erased a week’s worth of gains in the early hours on Friday as bears smashed the top crypto below $66,000 in an attempt to stymie advancing bulls, who have relentlessly charged higher over the past two weeks.
Data provided by TradingView shows that after peaking out above $73,800 on Thursday, Bitcoin underwent several rounds of sell-offs, with bulls attempting to defend support at $70,000, but ultimately being overrun by bear forces. BTC hit a low of $65,567 in morning trading on Friday, and at the time of writing trades at $68,485, a decrease of 4.2% on the 24-hour chart.
BTC/USD Chart by TradingView
While inexperienced crypto traders may see the move as a portend of the crash to come, seasoned veterans more or less yawned at the 11.2% pullback, which was relatively mild compared to pullbacks that occurred in previous bull market cycles.
Bitcoin’s price retracing -10% on this move when greater than -30% corrections are normal during bull runs.
This drop is after a strong move to all-time highs with >95% of the supply sitting in unrealized profit.
Nothing to see here, very normal bull market behavior— On-Chain College (@OnChainCollege) March 15, 2024
Based on market cycle theory, Bitcoin is merely in a healthy correction and is now back in re-accumulation mode near its previous all-time high, as noted by market analyst Rekt Captial.
#BTC
Bitcoin is currently in the "Re-Accumulation Around Old All Time Highs" phase (green circle)$BTC #Crypto #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/mHJxPAP3Hi— Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) March 15, 2024
“If this -11% dip scares you...wait until Bitcoin experiences its future three deeper corrections in price discovery,” Rekt Capital said.
As usual, derivatives traders were hit hard by the uptick in volatility, with data provided by Coinglass showing that longs were liquidated to the tune of $594.45 million, while shorts lost $159.9 million.
Unusually early cycle rally
"It's been another excellent week for the crypto industry as Bitcoin broke above $70,000 and established a new all-time high,” Rachel Lin, co-founder and CEO of SynFutures, in a note shared with Kitco Crypto. “Ethereum broke above the $4000 mark, and the non-ethereum altcoin market cap broke above $750 billion. With Bitcoin clearly in price discovery mode, we might see a strong uptrend in the coming weeks and months.”
Lin noted that during the previous cycle, “it took less than a month for Bitcoin to reach $40,000 after breaking above the previous $20,000 high. While we may not see such a move this season, it clearly shows the potential of the BTC bull market.”
“Over the past few months, all the price action has distracted attention from the fundamentals,” she said. “However, the work on improving the Web3 space has continued unabated. This week, we saw the successful completion of the ETH Dencun upgrade, which has already resulted in a sharp fall in gas fees across several ETH L2 chains.”
Regarding the broader altcoin market, Lin noted a general “rise in the value of most major coins and tokens.”
“Among the top 10, the biggest gainers this week were BNB, up 33%, and AVAX, up 25%,” she said. “Meme coins also have a great run with tokens like WifHat and Boden, which have garnered a lot of trading activity. The derivatives data also continues to show a strong bullish bias. However, the top 5 option OI for March is between the 50,000 to 75,000 range.”
“These developments are similar to the previous bull runs but only a lot earlier in the cycle. It's important to remember that Bitcoin halving is still a month away, and the new all-time highs have already been hit,” Lin concluded. “This suggests that this cycle is different; however, Bitcoin looks very bullish even if it witnesses a much-delayed correction in the coming days.”
