by Bitcoin price circles $43,000 as Chinese stocks are halted for volatility in a wild start to the macro week.
Bitcoin
BTC
tickers down
$43,001
begins its first full week of February with an escape from a breakdown below $42,000.
BTC price action remains in a sticky range — one which saw January gains capped at just 0.6%. What might be next for the market?
Still battling the low to mid-$40,000 area, Bitcoin bulls so far lack genuine momentum required to overcome sell pressure and challenge range highs.
The road ahead looks increasingly bumpy: the halving is around two-and-a-half months away,
and perspectives on how price will react both before and after differ considerably.
Some believe that major change is incoming and that Bitcoin might not only smash
its way through local resistance but even set a new all-time high before mid-April.
Other takes call for “business as usual” — no significant price action until months after the halving takes place.
In the background, macroeconomic risks continue to fester, this week joined by fresh turmoil in Chinese equities markets.
With United States data surprising markets last week, there are thus questions over how the
Federal Reserve’s economic policy might evolve — especially when it comes to the timing of interest rate cuts, a key issue for crypto and risk assets.
Cointelegraph takes a closer look at these topics and more in the weekly rundown of what to look out for when it comes to BTC/USD.
BTC price indicators forewarn of volatility
At around $42,550 on Bitstamp, Bitcoin’s latest weekly close was its second-highest of 2024.
What followed was familiar behavior — BTC/USD sought to sell off,
this time offering two retests of $42,200 before rebounding to around $600 higher at the time of writing, per data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView.
Bid liquidity thus preserved the current zone of interest within a wider range that Bitcoin has acted in for more than 150 days.
In his latest spot market analysis, popular trader Skew noted that it was a limit bidder protecting overnight price action from further downside.
