(Kitco News) – The wider cryptocurrency market got a reprieve from the recent bout of selling on Thursday as prices were up across the board following a slight pullback in the DXY, which had been on a relentless ascent over the past week.
Data from TradingView shows that at the same time as the DXY was retreating, Bitcoin (BTC) price rallied from a low of $18,550 to an intraday high of $19,502 in late trading on Wednesday, and has since traded sideways, with bull and bears battling for control of support at $19,200.
BTC/USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
The recovery from Wednesday’s lows was noted in the morning Bitcoin update from Senior Kitco Market Analyst Jim Wyckoff, who noted that “Bitcoin-U.S. dollar prices are firmer in early U.S. trading Thursday after prices earlier this week dropped to a nine-week low.”
Wyckoff warned that Bitcoin is not out of the woods yet; however, highlighting that “The BC bears have the near-term technical advantage amid a price downtrend in place on the daily bar chart. The path of least resistance for prices is sideways to lower in the near term.”
Further insight into what a slide lower might look like was provided by the on-chain data firm WhaleMap, which posted the following chart highlighting some of the major areas of accumulation where “Whale wallets” are known to be active.
BTC volume profile. Source: Twitter
According to Whalemap, there are “Three increasingly more painful BTC levels according to on-chain. $19k, $16k and $13k. All of them are likely to act as supports – the question is which one will hold?”
That is indeed the question on everyone’s mind now as the strong downtrend on the BTC chart shows no signs of abating in the near future.
Altcoins outperform BTC
The altcoin market saw a nice bounce in prices on Thursday, outperforming BTC as they are known to do during both positive and negative spikes in volatility.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
Ethereum (ETH) experienced a 5% rebound in price to hit an intraday high at $1,655 as the wider market remains bullish on the approaching Merge.
The way $ETH doesn’t heave so heavy when $BTC does and picks back up quickly afterwards gives me some encouragement going into the merge.
I don’t think anyone can control the broader market, but it’s clear there’s someone trying to make ETH happen.
Bigger hands than mine.
— The Crypto Dog🫐 (@TheCryptoDog) September 8, 2022
The biggest gainers out of the top 200 coins on CoinMarketCap include Polymath (POLY), which put on a scorching gain of 138% to hit a high of $0.44, while Golem (GLM) climbed 49.4% and OKB (OKB) increased 21%
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $978 billion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 37.6%
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