Bitcoin price is trading near support at $19.2k as all eyes focus on the Ethereum merger
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(Kitco News) – The broader cryptocurrency market got a reprieve from its latest selling bout on Thursday as prices rallied across the board following a slight pullback in the DXY, which had been on a relentless rally for the past week.
Data from TradingView shows that as the DXY retreated, Bitcoin (BTC) prices rallied from a low of $18,550 to an intraday high of $19,502 in late trade on Wednesday and have since traded sideways, with bulls and bears battling for control over support to $19,200.
BTC/USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
The recovery from Wednesday’s lows was noted in the morning Bitcoin update from Senior Kitco market analyst Jim Wyckoff, who noted that “Bitcoin-US dollar prices are firmer in early US trading on Thursday after prices earlier this week fell to a nine-week low low point.”
Wyckoff cautioned that Bitcoin is not out of the woods yet; but emphasizes that “the BC bears have the near-term technical advantage amid a price downtrend in place on the daily bar chart. The path of least resistance for prices is sideways to lower in the near-term.”
Further insight into what a downward slide might look like was provided by on-chain data company WhaleMap, which released the following chart highlighting some of the key areas of accumulation where “Whale wallets” are known to be active.
BTC volume profile. Source: Twitter
According to Whalemap, there are “Three increasingly painful BTC levels according to the chain. $19k, $16k and $13k. All of them are likely to act as supports – the question is which one will hold?”
Indeed, that’s the question on everyone’s mind right now, as the strong downtrend on the BTC chart shows no sign of abating in the near future.
Altcoins outperform BTC
The altcoin market saw a nice rally in prices on Thursday, outperforming BTC as they are known to do during both positive and negative spikes in volatility.
Daily performance in the cryptocurrency market. Source: Coin360
Ethereum (ETH) saw a 5% rally in price to hit an intraday high of $1,655 as the broader market remains bullish on the impending consolidation.
The road $ETH don’t lift so heavy when $BTC doing and picking up quickly afterwards gives me some encouragement to go into the merge.
I don’t think anyone can control the broader market, but clearly someone is trying to make ETH happen.
Bigger hands than mine.
— The Crypto Dog🫐 (@TheCryptoDog) 8 September 2022
The biggest winners of the top 200 coins on CoinMarketCap include Polymath (POLY), which posted a blistering 138% gain to hit a high of $0.44, while Golem (GLM) climbed 49.4% and OKB (OKB) surged 21%
The total cryptocurrency market cap is now $978 billion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 37.6%
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