It was a dramatic day for bitcoin (BTC) price action on Thursday, with the BTC/USDT pair soaring as high as US$31,500 yet ringing the midnight bell at US$29,895, marking 2% of losses for the day.
Although the dip below 30k was a tense moment, trades in today’s Asia hours managed to push bitcoin back above US$30,100, firmly within the sideways trading channel that bitcoin has etched out over the past two weeks.
Testing the sub-30k support lines and successfully recovering lends credence to the view that bitcoin has enough bullish support to keep its head above 30k for the short term.
But today is looking to be another volatile one, with the BTC/USDT pair oscillating above and below 30k as the bulls and bears battle it out.
Bitcoin bulls and bears fight for 30k – Source: currency.com
The overriding narrative around bitcoin is undoubtedly the prospect of BlackRock’s spot bitcoin ETF securing the necessary regulatory approvals.
BlackRock (NYSE:BLK), the world’s largest asset manager, has suffered one setback already, but hopes are high that its second application could be a goer.
That is yet to be seen, but the prospect has undeniably been a boost for bitcoin’s spot price, which is 14% higher month on month.
However, yesterday’s 2% dip means bitcoin’s week-on-week performance has dipped into the red zone.
In the futures market, long liquidations took a US$35mln hit in the past 24 hours, while open interest fell by 6%.
As for Ethereum (ETH), the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency closed a bruising 3.4% lower at US$1,846 on Thursday, with a small push higher to US$1,854 this morning.
In the altcoin space, Solana (SOL) is the best week-on-week performer among the blue chips, having added 4.5% to its market capitalisation, which currently stands at US$7.8bn.
Although the likes of Tron (TRX) and Polygon (MATIC) are also in the green, the wider altcoin space is suffering a prolonged bout of inactivity amid a flight to quality,
Bitcoin’s dominance of the US$1.17tn global cryptocurrency market currently stands at 51.5%, up from less than 40% at the end of 2022.