Bitcoin
and other cryptocurrencies slipped Thursday, paring gains after the latest leg of a big rally in digital assets over the past six weeks. A key price level remains a hurdle for Bitcoin, but analysts and traders continue to be bullish.
The price of Bitcoin has fallen 1% over the past 24 hours to below $37,700, retreating after an advance above $38,000 earlier this week, a level that marks the highest point for prices since cryptos plunged into a brutal bear market 19 months ago. The largest digital asset has gained more than a third since mid-October, snapping out of a multi-month period of subdued crypto trading and spurring calls of a new bull market.
Current price action in Bitcoin is “showing another pullback as part of a broader uptrend that started in mid-October but has slowed in the last couple of weeks,” said Alex Kuptsikevich, an analyst at broker FxPro.
Largely fueling gains for cryptos has been optimism that U.S. regulators will soon approve the first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), which would be expected to usher in a fresh wave of investor interest in digital assets. Bitcoin can also thank an improved macroeconomic backdrop amid expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates multiple times next year, a trend that has also buoyed the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
and
S&P 500.
As Bitcoin ends November, capping a bumper two-month stretch, the key hurdle remains the $38,000 price zone. While Bitcoin has breached this level multiple times in recent weeks, the air above $38,000 has proved to be thin, with prices consistently failing to consolidate above that point.
“The market has proven that it’s not ready to accelerate, but it hasn’t found any reason to go deep down either,” said Kuptsikevich. “Only a failure below $36,700 will confirm that $38,000 is a solid horizontal resistance. Without this confirmation, the working scenario remains in the upward range.”
Beyond Bitcoin,
Ether
—the second-largest crypto—fell 1% to $2,030. Smaller tokens, or altcoins, were more mixed, with
Cardano
down 2% but
Polygon
2% higher. It was more of the same for memecoins, with
Dogecoin
rising 2% and
Shiba Inu
falling 1%.
Write to Jack Denton at jack.denton@barrons.com
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