By Alicia Maher
After making huge gains on February 4, BTC surged past the $40K local resistance level.
Wiping Off Previous Losses
Despite trading in a narrow range since the beginning of the week and suffering a dip in the last ten days, the leading cryptocurrency made appreciable gains within 24 hours to wipe off those losses. A Coingecko data late Friday showed that BTC price was nearly $42.5K.
BTC daily chart. Source: Tradingview
An IntoTheBlock data revealed (via Twitter) that there has been a 33% decrease in the number of persons who have held BTC for one month. Thus, suggesting that spectators are leaving the crypto market while value investors continue to increase their holdings in anticipation of a more bullish market soon.
Intotheblock Tweet. Source: Twitter
Analysts opine that the positive earnings report by wall street firms and a 3% rise in the Nasdaq index is attributed as the cause of the bullishness in the crypto market. Recently, crypto analysts discovered a direct correlation between the crypto market’s performance, the performance of wall street companies and the Nasdaq index.
ETH Surges Past The $3K Psychological Barrier
The BTC rebound affected the crypto market positively, with most of the altcoins in green. As of this morning, the overall evaluation of crypto has also risen by 13%. Asides from the stablecoins, nearly all the top 12 altcoins made at least 6.5% gains within the past 24 hours.
BNB, LUNA and DOT all saw double-digit profits. Asides from making a 7% increase in the last 24 hours, the king altcoin (ETH) broke the $3K psychological barrier like BTC did by breaking the $40K barrier.
ETH price uptrend is occurring nearly two weeks after hitting a 12-month low of $2.16K on Coingecko. Also, ETH’s MACD is in oversold territory, and additional buying pressure might result in a further push up of the MACD and up to 15.5% gains for short-term traders.
Late Shorters Lose $275m
The sudden spike in crypto prices has resulted in big losses for late short-term traders (those aiming to make quick profits but made a late entry into the market). A Coinglass data showed that these late shorters lost about $275m, with 45% of those losses (amounting to $105.79m) occurring from BTC trades in the past day. The remaining losses (amounting to $170m) occurred from altcoin trades, especially ETH, SOL, LUNA, SAND and XRP trades in that order.
Is The Correction Over Yet?
As reported earlier in the week, BTC had completed the fourth wave of the five-wave counts. But it would need to complete all five before embarking on a strong bullish run. Then, the question would be whether BTC had completed the fifth wave.
However, the truth is that the BTC bias isn’t yet clear as of this writing. It would become clearer in the next couple of days. Thus, short-term traders would need to be cautious amidst this latest uptrend move since the BTC price movement hasn’t indicated its direction yet.