Bitcoin Rises Above USD 23,000 After Its First Weekly ‘Death Cross’
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, rose 8.86% in the week from February 10 to February 17, trading at USD 23,764 at 7pm on Friday in Hong Kong. Ether gained 7.86% in the same period and changed hands at USD 1,665.
Bitcoin saw this week’s second biggest gains among the top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies, followed by Polygon’s Matic which rose 13.33% to $1.44.
“I expect a bit of sideways movement. The market needs to calm down a bit before further impulses,” Aziz Kenjaev, head of partnerships at decentralized crypto derivatives exchange GammaX, wrote in a LinkedIn response to Discard.
“There is massive support and a strong buy order wall that could push Bitcoin further towards $29,000-$30,000 in early March. However, there is also a strong support zone at $22,250. If that support holds, we could see another impulse against USD 25,300,” Kenjaev wrote, adding that “there will be more speculation over SEC and Paxos, so keep the news feed open.”
Kenjaev sees less correlation between traditional markets and crypto markets, as prices are mainly driven by industry developments.
“The cryptocurrency market is more focused on the development of its own ecosystem and the connection of this decentralized ecosystem to the centralized one. Therefore, any development related to regulators versus crypto companies, especially US regulators, affects the crypto market,” Kenjaev wrote.
“Pay attention to the release, testing, distribution and use of central bank digital currencies (CBDC). The most important macroeconomic data I want to see is the national debt. A lot of money has been spent in recent years and governments will look to get it back, ” Kanjaev wrote, adding that “the government knows that there is a good amount of funds flowing in Web3.”
The global crypto market capitalization was at $1.09 trillion on Friday at 7 p.m. in Hong Kong, up 6.86% from $1.02 trillion a week ago, according to CoinMarketCap data. Bitcoin’s market cap of $458 billion represented 42.2% of the market, while Ether made up 18.7%.
See related article: JPMorgan report shows interest from institutional traders shifting to AI from blockchain after crypto decline
Biggest winners
Astar Network’s Astr token was this week’s biggest gainer among the top 100 coins by market capitalization listed on CoinMarketCap. Astar Network is a multi-chain smart contract network with a focus on Web3 innovation.
Astr rallied 51.72% in the past week to trade hands at $0.1099 following the announcement of its cooperation with Sony to launch a Web3 incubation program to support developers building Web3 projects.
Decentralized game developer Treasure’s Magic token was the next biggest gainer, up 44.94% to trade at $2.18. The token started its rally on February 13, following the company launched a new Game Builders program supported by Arbitrum to stimulate high-potential games built on Treasure by offering developers access to open source code as well as advisory and marketing support.
See related article: Be careful what you wish for? Regulators are picking up the pace in the crypto industry
Next week?
For the first time in Bitcoin’s history, a “death cross” appeared on its weekly chart. This meant that the 50-week small moving average (SMA), a key technical indicator, broke below the 200-week SMA for the first time.
Kasper Vandeloock, CEO of quantitative trading firm Musca Capital, said the death cross “gives very little input” as it only shows that the Bitcoin price has outperformed over the past 50 weeks compared to the past 200 weeks.
Bitcoin prices charted another significant formation, with their first “golden cross” on the daily timeframe since the beginning of the crypto bear market in November 2021. A golden cross means that the 50-day SMA is above the 200-day SMA. Historically, Bitcoin has charted several golden crosses in previous cycles before a sustained rally.
“A record 66.9% of circulating BTC has not moved in over a year,” tweeted Joe Burnett, principal analyst at Blockware Solutions, adds that “Bitcoin bear markets end when there are no sellers left, the price slowly starts to rise due to (any) marginal buyers, and the next wave of users learns that BTC is the least uncertain money.”
According to Kenjaev, this suggests that Bitcoin holders were more conservative. “They are waiting for the right time to sell and hedge against the coming recession. The state of global economic conditions now leads to more uncertainty than during the Covid-19 pandemic. The reason the situation is not changing with today’s global developments is that investors do not see the same scenario happening. The current market conditions look risk-attractive and favorable, although it is very early to call the next bull run. We will at least wait for improvements from regulatory bodies globally.”
“Some patterns suggest that an ideal scenario for Bitcoin would be to fall near USD 19,500-19,300,” he added, hoping for “a decline to USD 19,500 and a jump to USD 30,000.”
February 12, Blockstream CEO Adam Back predicted that Bitcoin would exceed USD 200 million in market cap, bringing BTC prices to USD 10 million by 2032.
See related article: Go ahead and ban striking. Crypto investors will just go elsewhere
