Bitcoin ( BTC ) stayed near monthly lows into the Jan. 20 Wall Street open as Ether ( ETH ) faced key resistance.
Bitcoin faces "staggering" sell-side pressure
Data from Cointelegraph markets Pro and TradingView tracked ongoing BTC price weakness after a trip to $40,600 overnight.
This marked Bitcoin’s lowest levels since Dec. 18 amid an atmosphere of nerves as bulls repeatedly failed to reclaim lost ground.
Analyzing the status quo, Michaël van de Poppe, founder and CEO of MN Trading, joined a popular narrative calling for a BTC price floor in the mid-$30,000 zone.
“Perhaps we're there already for Bitcoin, but it seems likely that we'll test lower before we can have a reversal back up,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
“My personal interest is between $36-40K to be accumulating more into Bitcoin. The range remains defined.”
Popular trader and analyst Rekt Capital continued the theory, arguing that Bitcoin was now fulfilling classic moves normally seen before block subsidy halvings. As Cointelegraph reported , this calls for a retreat over the coming month before the halving event in April.
#BTC
— Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) January 19, 2024
It's happening $BTC #Crypto #Bitcoin https://t.co/c1HsYIcuya pic.twitter.com/dAUTcbV3dz
Sales of “older” coins meanwhile also spiked during the latest dip, with a giant batch of 59,000 BTC moving on-chain for the first time in the last three to six months.
As noted by popular social media commentator Ali on X, these coins had an average acquisition cost of $26,000, resulting in a realized profit of nearly $900 million.
A staggering 59,000 $BTC , initially purchased 3-6 months ago at an average price of $26,000, was recently sold, netting an impressive 57.69% profit. This equates to a total gain of around $885 million! pic.twitter.com/cxubNOTFdQ
— Ali (@ali_charts) January 19, 2024
Previously, research also attributed the comedown from $49,000 last week to whale selling .
Crunch time for ETH strength as faith builds
Turning to altcoins, it was ETH/BTC on the radar as the pair faced a long-term downward trendline.
Having made swift advances against Bitcoin since last week, Ether passed 0.06 BTC before consolidating near that level, its highest since April 2022.
“This consolidation is occurring at a resistance trendline, above the 200-day moving average cloud,” Caleb Franzen, senior analyst at Cubic Analytics, wrote in part of his latest X analysis .
