Bitcoin (BTC) ticked 0.7% higher on Tuesday, finishing the day above US$30,600 before surging above US$38,000 in this morning’s Asia trading window.
Barring intraday volatility, the BTC/USDT pair has quite firmly conformed to the 30k to 31k trading channel for going on three weeks now.
Going by Binance’s order book, pushing bitcoin above 31k, and keeping it there, will not be easy.
Large sums of sell orders are placed at this resistance price point, which will likely cause spot price compression.
However, the bulls have done well to keep the benchmark cryptocurrency above the critical US$30,000 price point since mid-June, ever since BlackRock Inc (NYSE:NYSE:BLK) filed for a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund with the US regulators.
That process looks set to take longer than expected, leading to questions over whether bitcoin can maintain its 70% year-to-date price in the meantime.
Can bitcoin surpass 31k? – Source: currency.com
One issue is trading volumes, which are around three-month lows on the major exchange despite the recent rally on spot prices.
Reduced liquidity in the market could prove a bearish factor if it persists.
Today’s UK inflation data may cause some volatility in the crypto markets. Analysts predict a fall back to 3.1%, but an upside surprise may trigger a risk-off flight from the crypto markets.
Alternatively, lower-than-expected inflation figures could do the opposite.
Over to Ethereum (ETH), the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency had a non-eventful Tuesday session, but has managed to add nearly percentage point in today’s trades.
At the time of writing, the ETH/USDT pair was swapping for US$1,894.
Global cryptocurrency market capitalisation currently stands at US$1.19tn, with bitcoin dominance slightly above 51.6%.
In the equities space, Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) continued its impressive performance of late by adding nearly 10% on Tuesday.
The Nasdaq-quoted cryptocurrency exchange is now over 76% higher month on month, as investors take warmly to its involvement as surveillance-sharing partner in BlackRock’s ETF application.
Coinbase is expected to open 0.56% higher at US$89.15 when US markets open.
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