News 3083 items
A break of the tight trading range could see bitcoin fall to $3,000, says analyst - MarketWatch (marketwatch.com)
Bitcoin hovered just above $7,000 Friday, on track to record its third consecutive winning week.

At 5 p.m. Eastern, one bitcoin BTCUSD, -0.30%  fetched $7,043.36, up 1.8% since Thursday at 5 p.m. on the Kraken crypto exchange.

Despite volatility, the No. 1 digital currency has not broken out of the $5,500 to $8,500 range in more than three months, a tendency that one asset management firm pins on the dominance of short-term traders.

“Within our own team, we tend to believe the market is in an ultra reflexive state currently. It moves within a range in response to seemingly every bit of news,” wrote Thejas Nalval, portfolio director, and Kevin Lu, director of quantitative research at Element Digital Asset Management.

“This is likely the result of trading having been dominated by short-term players that are using structured derivative vehicles with leverage to express intraday speculation,” Nalval said.


Technical formation could send bitcoin to $3,000

It’s this tight trading range that has one analyst thinking the market is on the brink of a triangle breakout, one that will not please owners of digital currencies.

“The inability of bitcoin to grow above $7,000 seems to be a serious caution,” wrote Alexander Kuptsikevich, analyst at FX Pro, adding that the support near $6,000 is creating a potential bearish technical signal.

“The technical analysis teaches us that the movement within such a triangle often ends up with a breakdown of support and a sharp impulse to decline,” he said. “In this case, bitcoin has a serious chance to reach the level of $3,000” to complete the triangle.

Read: Opinion: If you want financial secrecy, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can’t deliver it

Bitcoin futures were outperforming spot markets Friday. The Cboe Global Markets Inc.’s September contract XBTU8, +2.94%  ended 2.5% higher at $7,047.50, while the CME Group Inc.

August contract BTCQ8, +1.61% gained 1.6% to end at $6,925.56

CryptoWatch: Check bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices, performance and market capitalization—all on one

Providing critical information for the U.S. trading day. Subscribe to MarketWatch's free Need to Know newsletter. Sign up here.
    • 1
    Francisco Gimeno - BC Analyst The problem is that TA doesn't work very well with BTC or any other crypto. Up, down, HODL, buy, sell, is the same for analysts that have to justify their salaries writing articles like these. What will happen, it will happen. We can't know more while BTC is so volatile yet.