(Kitco News) – Cryptocurrency prices trended higher to end the week as Bitcoin (BTC) crested above $67,000 for the first time since April 23, sparking a market-wide rally that saw the total cryptocurrency market cap increase 3% to $2.42 trillion.
Equities finished the week mixed after the three major indices hit new highs in earlier sessions as Wall Street paused its voracious buying to reevaluate the odds of seeing a rate cut by September.
At the closing bell, the S&P and Dow finished in the green, up 0.12% and 0.34%, respectively, while the Nasdaq lost 0.07%. Both the S&P and Nasdaq have recorded their fourth consecutive winning week, a streak not seen since February. The Dow closed above 40,000 for the first time in history.
“Bitcoin surged past $66,000 early Friday, recovering from Thursday's dip below $65,000,” said analysts at Secure Digital Markets. “The price started to retreat precisely at our resistance target of $67,500. As long as Bitcoin remains above its 50-day moving average, we anticipate continued upward momentum.”
BTC/USD Chart by TradingView
“Notably, this week has seen significant institutional interest, with major players disclosing substantial BTC ETF holdings,” they added. “For instance, Morgan Stanley reported a $269.9 million investment in Grayscale's GBTC yesterday.”
Bullish signs emerge
Market analyst Moustache also highlighted Bitcoin’s moving averages, noting that a golden cross is “imminent” on the 12-hour chart.
#Bitcoin
Golden Cross (12h-Chart) of $BTC is imminent.
The last bullish cross was over six months ago.
Bitcoin has risen by over 170% since then.
Probably nothing.?? pic.twitter.com/MRxAf9qFyD— ???????ⓗ? ? (@el_crypto_prof) May 17, 2024
A golden cross occurs when a shorter-term moving average crosses above a longer-term equivalent. The last time this cross occurred was in October, just before Bitcoin rallied from sub-$30,000 to a new high near $74,000 over the next four months.
Data provided by Farside show that the streak of inflows into spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) extended to four days on Thursday, highlighting that Bitcoin’s price usually performs well when the ETFs record net inflows.
According to Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, the recent inflows have lifted the total assets under management back to $12.3 billion since launch, which he called a “key number.
The bitcoin ETFs have put together a solid two weeks with $1.3b in inflows, which offsets the entirety of the negative flows in April- putting them back around high water mark of +$12.3b net since launch. This key number IMO bc it nets out inflows and outflows (which are normal) pic.twitter.com/tdnZOKEocM
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) May 17, 2024
The “Last two [months] show why [it’s] best not to get emotional over flows, which come in and out, part of ETF life,” Balchunas said, adding that he thinks “they’ll net out positive long-term. The flow [amounts] on either side are small relative to AUM, maybe 1-2%, so it’s never SO OVER or SO BACK if you think about it.”
Crypto analyst and trader Kevin Svenson said Bitcoin (BTC) is flashing bullish signals similar to what was seen in mid-March, just before it rallied to a new all-time high.
“We are breaking out of a reversal bottom pattern,” he said, referring to the appearance of an inverse head and shoulders pattern on the Bitcoin chart. “So this is really bullish, I would say… Bitcoin is also above the Relative Strength Index (RSI) downtrend line on the daily chart. And this is just a signal for continuation to the upside.”
“It’s no different than this zone in early 2024 when we had a sideways consolidation, downward sloping resistance on the RSI, and we broke out leading us to new all-time highs,” he noted. “Bitcoin is once again playing out the exact same scenario, likely leading us to new all-time highs.”
Svenson suggested that Bitcoin is in the fourth stage of a parabolic curve pattern which could potentially peak at $90,000.
“This is the textbook target of $90,000; this is not the cycle peak target,” he said. “I think that in this bull cycle, considering that the halving just happened, we could go higher than $90,000. But we may have to cool down before that.”
“So that could mean that Bitcoin runs up to our parabolic trend target of $90,000 before seeing a breakdown of that trend with a sideways consolidation,” he concluded. “And then a further push up creating a larger more expansive parabolic trend.”
Altcoins finish the week strong
Altcoins finished the week on a positive note with only a dozen tokens in the top 200 seeing red on Friday, and none losing more than 3%.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
DeFi project 0x Protocol (ZRX) led the field with an increase of 16.6%, followed by a gain of 16.5% for Biconomy (BICO), and a 13.6% climb for Gnosis (GNO). Beam (BEAM) was the biggest loser, falling 2.9%, while Notcoin (NOT) fell 2.1%, and Core (CORE) lost 2%.
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $2.42 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 54.4%.
