(Kitco News) – Cryptocurrency prices corrected lower on Wednesday afternoon as the expected post-halving pullback arrived, with Bitcoin (BTC) experiencing a rapid price sell-off that saw it slide below $64,000.
Stocks opened higher after a positive response to the earnings report from Tesla, but fell into the red in the afternoon as concerns about the economy and interest rates preoccupied traders.
“S&P 500 futures remained stable as investors evaluated new corporate financial data,” said analysts at Secure Digital Markets. “Tesla shares rose over 12% in pre-market trading following announcements of new, more affordable electric vehicle initiatives, despite a 9% revenue drop in the first quarter, marking its most significant year-over-year decline since 2012.”
At the closing bell, the Nasdaq recorded a slight gain of 0.10%, the S&P was flat, and the Dow lost 0.11%.
Data provided by TradingView shows that after trading near support at $66,500 in early trading on Wednesday, Bitcoin bears turned up the heat and dropped the top crypto to a low of $63,560 in the afternoon, representing a 5.25% intraday swing from the high of $67,080.
BTC/USD Chart by TradingView
“This movement occurs amidst persistent strength in the US Dollar Index and the 10-year Treasury yield, suggesting that caution remains advisable when dealing with risk assets,” Secure Digital Markets said. “For Bitcoin to attract further bullish momentum, it needs to decisively breach the $67,500 level.”
At the time of writing, BTC trades at $63,880, a decrease of 3.6% on the 24-hour chart.
Bitcoin needs to hold $60k
“Bears forced a new low on Bitcoin, pushing it below $60k for a few hours,” said market analyst Bloodgood in his latest update. “A lower low on a higher timeframe doesn't bring good news for bulls; however, we see a hammer-like candle formation, which usually leads to a bullish continuation.”
“Given that the halving happened over the weekend, I expect the trend to turn soon,” Bloodgood said. “If you look at the price action from previous halving events, you will notice that the price always retraced before or soon after the event by 10-15%. Following the retrace, we have seen months of upside.”
That said, Bloodgood noted that “The daily timeframe is bearish.”
“A series of lower lows and lower highs with volume dropping means that there is a possibility of going further down in the short term, unless something huge happens,” he said. “The level that we must monitor is $60k as it is a must-hold level if we want to see continuation.”
While this cycle has proven to be somewhat different from the previous halving cycles, Bloodgood said he still expects a parabolic run to occur at some point in the next 18 months.
“Crypto cycles have always been centered around halvings and, while it’s possible that things will change at some point down the line, there’s still no reason to abandon the patterns that have proved so reliable from the start,” he concluded. “This cycle is definitely somewhat unusual (in that ATHs normally don’t tend to happen before the halving), but the default assumption should still be that the cycle is far from over.”
According to market analyst Rekt Capital, Bitcoin is now in the “re-accumulation range,” which “tends to develop a few weeks before the halving,” with a “majority forming after the halving.”
“This range concludes with a breakout from it several weeks after the halving,” he said. “The goal now is for Bitcoin to move sideways to catch a breather, for the market to cool off after a fantastic pre-halving price performance.”
Rekt Capital noted that the re-accumulation phase “can last multiple weeks and even up to 150 days (i.e 5 months),” which can lead to “many investors getting shaken-out due to boredom, impatience, and disappointment with lack of major results in their BTC investment in the immediate aftermath of the halving.”
“Once Bitcoin breaks out from the re-accumulation area breakout into the parabolic uptrend (green),” he said. “It is during this phase Bitcoin experiences accelerated growth into a parabolic uptrend. Historically, this phase has lasted just over a year (~385 days) however with a potential accelerated cycle occurring right now, this figure may get cut in half in this market cycle.”
#BTC
If history repeats...
Next Bull Market peak may occur 518-546 days after the Halving
That's mid-September or mid-October 2025$BTC #Bitcoin #BitcoinHalving pic.twitter.com/2pZVFYmnJX— Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) April 24, 2024
Sea of red in the altcoin market
Most altcoins in the top 200 recorded losses on Wednesday as Bitcoin’s sudden drop signaled to traders that post-halving volatility is ramping up and now is not the time to trade riskier assets.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
Meme coin Bonk (BONK) was the standout performer, gaining 12.6% amid the sea of red, while Algorand climbed 11.2%, and dogwifhat (WIF) increased by 6.8%. Gnosis (GNO) led the losers with a decline of 13%, followed by a loss of 10.5% for Bittensor (TAO), and a decline of 9.6% for SATS (1000SATS).
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $2.36 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 53.1%.
