(Kitco News) – Bitcoin’s (BTC) price experienced a minor sell-off in early trading on Monday after bulls pushed for resistance at $70,000 but were stopped short of their goal as bears stacked their defenses at $69,500, which proved too much for bulls to overcome.
After halting the bulls’ rally, bears took charge of the price action and smacked BTC to support at $67,000, and now look determined to break below that support level.
BTC/USD Chart by TradingView
While Monday has gotten off to a red start for the crypto market, it follows one of the best weeks in recent months as Bitcoin hit its highest price since July, while altcoins have also enjoyed notable gains.
“The crypto market has maintained its upward trajectory, with total capitalization up more than 7% in seven days to $2.39 trillion, the highest since late July,” noted Alex Kuptsikevich, senior market analyst at FxPro. “The Cryptocurrency Fear and Greed Index is in the 71-73 (greed) range for the sixth day, also replicating the late July performance.”
“Bitcoin has hit new highs in almost three months, peaking at $69.5K on Monday morning on the back of a surge in inflows into the BTC ETF,” he added. “The price is now assessing the late July highs, and the May-June double top just below $72K looks to be the bulls’ next target.”
“Ethereum rises 8.2% in seven days to $2,740, reaching highs not seen since late August,” Kuptsikevich added. “The second-largest cryptocurrency can easily reach the $2,900 area, where the 50-week moving average and the April-July price support area from earlier this year could be selling points, in addition to the important round level.”
According to TradingView analyst Xanrox, Bitcoin is now retesting its recent breakout from a wedge formation, and if bulls can regain their footing, King Crypto could rally to a new record high this week.
“Bitcoin is breaking out of the rising wedge pattern and will most likely hit a new all-time high [at] the end of this week or October!” he said. “We can also see that a major bullish flag on the weekly chart is breaking out as well, so this is considered a double breakout.”
“I have 3 short-term profit targets: 70,079 is the first major swing high of the major bullish flag,” he noted. “73,777 is the previous all-time high level, and 78,438 is a very significant resistance because it's the 1.618 FIB extension.”
“From the Elliott Wave perspective, this is extremely bullish as well,” Xanrox said. “The combination of waves 1-2-1-2 creates an Elliott Wave bullish nest. That means we are currently in wave 3 of wave 3, and you probably know that wave 3 is usually the strongest of all of them. We can finally expect increased volatility!”
And with the post-halving crypto bull market starting to heat up, similar to previous cycles, all pullbacks in BTC are expected to be quickly absorbed by the market as analysts widely agree that momentum is now on the upswing.
“Last week, cryptoassets outperformed traditional assets by a very wide margin as demand for Bitcoins picked up the most since April 2024,” noted André Dragosch, Head of Research at ETC Group. “This is evident in the steep rise in apparent demand, which tries to estimate demand based on changes in supply and inventories.”
“The rise in demand was also clearly visible in the acceleration of net inflows into global crypto ETPs and US spot Bitcoin ETFs, in particular,” he added. “Last week, weekly net inflows into global crypto ETPs increased to the highest level since May 2024, with US spot Bitcoin ETFs attracting more than 2.1 bn USD in assets. US spot Ethereum ETF inflows also accelerated.”
Dragosch identified several catalysts behind the rising bullishness and said it’s not likely to subside anytime soon.
“First, Trump’s odds of winning the presidential election have recently increased significantly, which tends to be net positive for crypto asset prices,” he said. “At the time of writing, betting odds across various sites imply an average chance of winning of 58.3% for Trump and 41.1% for Harris, respectively.”
“Second, there has been a general increase in cross asset risk appetite, which is evident in the fact that both the US stock market as well as the price of gold hit a new all-time high last week,” Dragosch added. “This excitement seems to have spilled over into cryptoassets as well. In fact, our in-house Cryptoasset Sentiment Index has increased to the highest level since March 2024 again signalling increasing excitement within the crypto markets.”
The third factor boosting the price of Bitcoin is the fact that “US fiscal deficits have accelerated recently, sparking concerns over the sustainability of fiscal debts,” he highlighted. “More specifically, US total outstanding public debt has increased by almost half a trillion dollars since the beginning of September 2024. In this context, Bitcoin is increasingly regarded as an alternative reserve asset to US Treasuries, which could have contributed to the latest rise in the price of Bitcoin and other cryptoassets.”
“We continue to expect that the combination of Bitcoin’s increasing supply scarcity, the global monetary policy pivot, combined with a positive performance seasonality in Q4 will provide a significant tailwind for Bitcoin and cryptoassets over the coming months,” Dragosch concluded.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin trades at $66,875, a decline of 2.43% on the 24-hour chart.
