Bitcoin holds above $17,000 as US jobs data comes in stronger than expected
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(Kitco News) – It was a relatively quiet day across financial markets as investors digested stronger-than-expected jobs data, prompting them to reassess their expectations about when the Federal Reserve will pause its rate hike campaign.
As a result of the surprise jobs data, traditional markets swung between small gains and small losses on Friday, with the S&P and Nasdaq ending the day in the red, down 0.12% and 0.18%, respectively, while the Dow saw a small gain of 0.10% .
Data from TradingView shows a similar story for Bitcoin (BTC), which traded as high as $17,122 and as low as $16,798, only to settle near $17,040 at the time of writing, marking a gain of 0.87% on the day.
BTC/USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
The relative calm witnessed in the market was touched upon by Kitco senior technical analyst Jim Wyckoff in his morning Bitcoin update when he highlighted that “Bitcoin-US dollar prices are almost stable on a routine break late this week after posting solid gains and hit a three-week high on Wednesday.”
Going forward, “bulls have a slight technical advantage in the near term,” according to Wyckoff, following this week’s price action that “saw a bullish upside ‘breakout'” on the daily chart to suggest a market bottom is in place and prices may now move further higher in the short term.”
A survey of crypto Twitter shows that many traders in the market saw Friday’s price action as “boring”, which was a welcome sight for some after the volatility witnessed in November.
Boring markets, though #Bitcoin consolidating nicely here and the game still stands.
— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) 2 December 2022
According to independent market analyst Crypto Tony, Bitcoin remains firmly below resistance at $17,200. If it manages to overcome bearish defenses at that price level, the next major resistance that Bitcoin will face is near $18,200.
Still rejecting from the middle area, which we have to turn to continue to the area high and above .. I remain in my long scalp👇 pic.twitter.com/jKK4E8Q6eC
— Crypto Tony (@CryptoTony__) 2 December 2022
The interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve may have started to have an effect according to analysts at CoinDCX, who suggested that “Positive reports on both CPI and PPI meant that the FED’s aggressive hawkish monetary policy on display throughout this year was finally making concrete progress in controlling inflation. ” This has given “markets hope and some breathing room as the Dollar Strength Index (DXY) continues to decline, leading to the rally in broader markets.”
CoinDCX also noted a potentially bullish catalyst for Bitcoin, which has “reached 64% of the way through the current halving cycle.” This has “historically marked a larger macro rally for Bitcoin in the previous cycles,” analysts said.
“These regions have previously been an attractive time to accumulate bitcoin with mining values and other on-chain indicators currently flashing signs of oversold and then undervalued market conditions,” CoinDCX concluded.
Double digit gains in the altcoin market
Price action for most of the altcoin market was similarly flat, apart from a few notable exceptions that managed to post double-digit gains for the day.
Daily performance in the cryptocurrency market. Source: Coin360
That includes a 64.58% gain for Revain (REV), a 38.82% increase for Acala Token (ACA) and a 12.82% gain for GMX (GMX).
The total cryptocurrency market cap is now $859 billion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 38.1%.
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