After weeks and weeks of failing under $17,000, bitcoin finally initiated an impressive leg up that took it well beyond that line.

The alternative coins have also posted notable gains on a daily scale, led by Cardano, Solana, ApeCoin, and ATOM.

Bitcoin Back Above $17K

The start of the year brought some minor positivity to the BTC bulls as the asset overcame $16,500 and added a few hundred dollars in the first few days. The trend continued until it faced $17,000 on Wednesday and Friday. Both attempts were followed by rejections that pushed bitcoin south.

The weekend was calmer as BTC had recovered some ground and stood inches away from $17,000. The bulls finally have something to cheer for as of now, as bitcoin broke above this coveted level hours ago.

The leg-up pushed the cryptocurrency to a four-week high of just over $17,250. This has pushed BTC’s market capitalization to a local peak of above $330 billion.

However, bitcoin’s dominance over the altcoins has taken a serious hit and is down to 39.1%, as most of them have outperformed it in the past 24 hours.

SOL, ADA Shoot Up

The alternative coins were untypically stagnant in the past few weeks as well, apart from a few exceptions. Today, though, the landscape is entirely different.

The two larger-cap alts at the forefront of the market run are Solana and Cardano. The former has been performing rather well since the start of the year, and a 21% surge in the past 24 hours alone has taken it to a local high of over $16.

Cardano, on the other hand, has soared by 17%, charting a two-month high of over $0.34 hours ago.

A 4% increase has helped Ethereum to reclaim $1,300 for the first time in several weeks. Binance Coin is up by 6% and is north of $275. Ripple, Dogecoin, Polygon, OKB, Litecoin, Polkadot, and Shiba Inu are also well in the green.

With the rest of the lower- and mid-cap alts posting impressive gains, the cumulative market cap of all crypto assets has added $20 billion in a day and is up to $850 billion.

Bitcoin price extended its rise and traded towards $17,400. BTC is correcting gains, but it remains well supported near the $17,000 zone.

• Bitcoin extended its increase above the $17,000 and $17,200 resistance levels.
• The price is trading above $17,000 and the 100 hourly simple moving average.
• There is a key bullish trend line forming with support near $16,880 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair (data feed from Kraken).
• The pair could rise further if it stays above the $17,000 support and the trend line.

Bitcoin Price Extends Increase

Bitcoin price remained in a positive zone above the $16,800 level. BTC extended its increase after there was a clear close above the $17,000 level and the 100 hourly simple moving average.

The price gained pace and traded above the $17,250 level. It traded to a new yearly high at $17,391 before the bears appeared. There was a minor downside correction below the $17,250 level. It is now trading near the 50% Fib retracement level of the upward wave from the $16,911 swing low to $17,391 high.

Bitcoin price is now trading above $17,000 and the 100 hourly simple moving average. There is also a key bullish trend line forming with support near $16,880 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair.

Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com

On the upside, an immediate resistance is near the $17,280 level. The next major resistance is near the $17,400 zone, above which the price might even clear the $17,500 resistance. In the stated case, the price may perhaps rise towards the $18,000 level. Any more gains might send btc price towards the $18,500 level.

Dips Supported in BTC?

If bitcoin price fails to clear the $17,300 resistance, it could extend its downside correction. An immediate support on the downside is near the $17,150 level.

The next major support is near the $17,080 level. It is near the 61.8% Fib retracement level of the upward wave from the $16,911 swing low to $17,391 high. The main support is now forming near the $17,000 zone and the trend line region, below which the price might retest $16,500.

Technical indicators:

Hourly MACD – The MACD is now losing pace in the bullish zone.

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for BTC/USD is now above the 50 level.

Major Support Levels – $17,150, followed by $17,000.

Major Resistance Levels – $17,300, $17,400 and $18,000.

Bitcoin bulls managed to shake off December’s dust, decisively pushing past $17,000 for the first time in over three weeks. The world’s most traded cryptocurrency was trading at $17,348, up over 2.41% in the past 24 hours.

Ethereum led in gains surging by over 4.55% in the same period to trade at $1,330 Monday noon. Other cryptocurrencies in the top 15 groups by market capitalization also gained steam, led by Solana and Cardano, up over 22% and 13%. Dogecoin, BNB and MATIC followed quietly, adding over 8%, 7% and 3.20% overnight. Overall, the global crypto market cap increased by 3.49% to tap $855.83B, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Bitcoin’s surprising rebound comes after Friday’s positive nonfarm payment rolls data. While this data suggests an imbalance between labour supply and demand still exists, investors viewed cooling wages as a sign the Fed may slow its rate-hiking ambitions. Moreover, with the US inflation expected to remain stable in the coming week, economists have been pencilling in a 25 basis-point increase in the Fed’s benchmark rate, with some FED officials suggesting that a half-point hike is possible.

Fed’s monetary tightening is a big factor in Bitcoin’s price movement, contributing significantly to the cryptocurrency’s 64% decline last year. Observers have thus argued that the top crypto benefits immensely from the FED easing its monetary policy.

On January 4, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) announced that hedge funds significantly reduced their Bitcoin short positions “across the board” towards the end of 2022. Bitcoin futures open interest decreased by 1,086 from 14,124 on December 27 to 13,038 on January 4. This rate of decline suggests that investors should keep an eye on the conversion movement with long bets.

Confidence in the crypto sector has also been rekindling as authorities continue to crack down on FTX officials and other rogue actors worldwide-suggesting regulations may soon follow. According to John Reed Stark, Former Chief of SEC’s Office of Internet Enforcement, the trend is likely to continue, bringing back crypto’s shine and allure.

Onchain, Bitcoin’s sentiment indicator, has turned neutral, with exchange signals tilting to extremely bullishness, according to data from the crypto analytics platform IntoTheBlock. 53% of BTC holders are also depicted as making money at the moment, with only 37% being in the loss.

While there is still room for Bitcoin to plummet, traders expect the price to mount a mini rally towards the $18,200 resistance. According to Cryptoquant’s “Greatest_Trader”, “the end of the current bear market won’t be expected unless the price surpasses the realized price, currently at $19.7K.”

• Bitcoin BTC/USD and Ethereum ETH/USD surged late on Sunday evening, joining the rest of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization in a significant appreciation.

Coins	Price	Gains (Recorded at 9pm ET)
Bitcoin	$17,175	+3.42%
Ethereum	$1,292	+7.84%

• What Happened: Bitcoin was up 3.42% at $17,175 over the last 24 hours, pushing past the $17,000 level, while ETH gained 7.84% to $1,292, according to CoinMarketCap data.
• Meme coin Dogecoin DOGE/USD showed positive gains as well, rising 4% to $0.075.
• The total crypto market capitalization is up by 2.77%, reaching $845.4 billion.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased by 2.1%, the S&P 500 Index advanced by 2.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite Index concluded its session 2.6% higher on Friday. 
• This is the best day on record for the Dow and S&P 500 since Nov. 30 and the Nasdaq’s most successful since Dec. 29.

See More: Best Crypto Day Trading Strategies

• Analyst View: Popular cryptocurrency analyst Michael Van De Poppe has predicted a significant rally this week, but cautioned a minor drop on Monday as a result of Gemini or other corrections. 
• Crytpo lender Genesis last week eliminated 60 positions, or 30% of its workforce, as it attempted to economize and stave off a bankruptcy filing.

• CryptoSlate’s analysis of Glassnode data indicates a marked increase in open interest for both Bitcoin and Ethereum.
• The analysis showed a clear trend of significantly more call options than put options, indicating a strong bullish sentiment among options traders. Bitcoin has seen its strongest levels of demand in the $15,000 to $20,000 range, where its call-and-put options are roughly even. 
• This is unsurprising given its recent consolidation since the FTX collapse, which has kept it trading within this general price range.

Over 85% of Bitcoin has reportedly not been moving, according to ‘Documenting Bitcoin’, a source for all BTC stories. 

Read Next: Genesis Billionaire-Backed Crypto Lender Axes 30% Of Jobs Months After Laying Off 20% Of Staff

Bitcoin initiated another attempt to overcome $17,000 yesterday but was stopped in its tracks as it has been in the past several times.

The altcoins have retraced following a few positive days, with Tron, QNT, and LDO losing the most value daily.

Bitcoin Fails at $17K

Bitcoin ended the horrific 2022 with a drop below $16,400 on Friday, which was a multi-week low. As New Year’s Eve approached, the asset recovered some ground and returned back to $16,500. The next few days were calm until Monday, when BTC finally began to increase in value.

After adding around $200 in the next day or so, bitcoin kept climbing and neared $17,000 hours ago. This became its highest price point since December 20.

While the bulls were preparing to challenge and finally overcome that level, though, the bears came to play and reversed BTC’s trajectory.

As such, the cryptocurrency now trades a few hundred dollars below that level, but its market capitalization has remained north of $320 billion. Its dominance over the alts has also recovered some ground and sits at 39.7%.

ADA Jumps 12% Weekly

Similar to bitcoin, Cardano was also quiet during the last days of 2022. However, ADA started adding value with the start of the new year and is now up by over 12% on a weekly scale. The asset trades at $0.27 and is among the few in the green from the larger-cap alts daily.

In contrast, Dogecoin, Polygon, Ripple, Litecoin, Shiba Inu, Uniswap, and Avalanche have all declined by up to 4%. TRX is down by 8%, perhaps due to Justin Sun’s relation with the struggling crypto platform Huobi.

Quant and LidoDAO are the other larger-cap alts with more notable daily losses of over 5%.

All of these price drops have resulted in a $5 billion decline in the cumulative market capitalization of all crypto assets, which is now down to $815 billion.

Bitcoin and Ethereum traded slightly higher on Thursday evening, even as the global cryptocurrency market cap fell 0.5% to $818 billion at 7:52 p.m.

Price Performance Of Major Coins

Coin	24-hour	7-day	Price
Bitcoin BTC/USD	0.1%	1.4%	$16,867.08
Ethereum ETH/USD	0.1%	4.5%	$1,255.19
Dogecoin DOGE/USD	-1.6%	1.2%	$0.07

Top 24-Hour Gainers (Data via CoinMarketCap)

Cryptocurrency	24-Hour % Change (+/-)	Price
Helium (HNT)	+8.7%	$1.82
Kava (KAVA)	+5.9%	$0.7
Chiliz (CHZ)	+5.6%	​​$0.11

See Also: Where To Buy Cryptocurrency? 

Why It Matters: Major cryptocurrencies were relatively firm despite the jitteriness seen in other risk assets during intraday trading. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq finished Thursday 1.2% and 1.5% lower, respectively. U.S. stock futures were seen inching higher at the time of writing. 

Cryptocurrency trader Justin Bennett said that Bitcoin is holding up well compared with the S&P 500 index. He said Bitcoin “bulls have to take out $16,900. That’s the key to $17,300.”

On Thursday, Kansas City Federal Reserve President Esther George said she believed that the U.S. Federal Reserve should raise rates above 5% and keep them there until there was firm evidence that inflation was headed lower. 

“Bitcoin is little changed despite a risk-off session on Wall Street. The Fed might need to do more hiking and that doesn’t seem to be sending crypto lower,” said Edward Moya, a senior market analyst with OANDA.

Moya also noted that shares of crypto-focused bank Silvergate Capital Corp plunged on Thursday. “The bank was forced to liquidate assets at a loss to cover $8.1 billion in withdrawals,” said the analyst. 

Meanwhile, ​​Genesis Trading, a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group (DCG), which also owns Grayscale, said it would reduce its workforce by 30%. The company has already frozen redemption for all clients. 

Investors will be on the lookout for the December jobs report which will be released on Friday.

Michaël van de Poppe told his Twitter followers that they “should be good” if Bitcoin remains above $16,600. “Tricky weekend coming up with Grayscale, tomorrow unemployment data and such. Wouldn’t go crazy on leverage,” said the cryptocurrency trader. 

Market intelligence platform Santiment said that even though Bitcoin whales “dumped” as cryptocurrency markets “retraced” in 2022 they didn’t cash out in fiat currencies. 

“2021 profits are sitting in [stablecoin] wallets.” The platform tweeted that new large addresses of Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), Dai (DAI), and Binance USD (BUSD) stablecoins have “exploded.”

Read Next: Binance US’s Proposed $1B Deal For Voyager Digital Hits SEC Roadblock

• Bitcoin price steadied above $16,800 as US Federal Reserve officials agreed to slow its pace of interest rate hikes.

• The latest FOMC minutes indicate that US policymakers are focused on controlling the pace of price hikes.

• Bitcoin could surge past the $17k resistance level soon.

BTC eyes the $17k resistance level

The United States Federal Reserve recently released minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee for December. Fed members agreed that a restrictive policy stance would need to be maintained for now until the incoming data provided confidence that core inflation was on a sustained downward path back down to 2%.

This latest cryptocurrency news saw Bitcoin, the world’s leading cryptocurrency by market cap, maintain its price above the $16,800 level over the last 24 hours. It has lost less than 1% of its value, and the price of Bitcoin now stands at $16,834. 

The broader crypto market is also recovering from its recent slump. At press time, the total cryptocurrency market cap stands at $819 billion, up by less than 1% in the last 24 hours.

Key levels to watch

The BTC/USD 4-hour chart is bullish as Bitcoin has held its ground above the 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) at $16,714 over the last few days. 

The MACD line is above the neutral zone, indicating that the leading cryptocurrency has preserved its downward trend from the standpoint of realised price. The 14-day RSI of 61 also shows that more bulls controlling the market could see BTC enter the overbought region. 

If the bullish momentum increases, BTC could surge past the first major resistance level at $17,145 over the next few hours. However, Bitcoin could struggle to surpass the second major resistance level at $17,485 in the short term, unless it gains support from the broader crypto market. 

Where to buy Bitcoin now

eToro

eToro offers a wide range of cryptos, such as Bitcoin, XRP and others, alongside crypto/fiat and crypto/crypto pairs. eToro users can connect with, learn from, and copy or get copied by other users.

Buy BTC with eToro today

Disclaimer

Bitstamp

Bitstamp is a leading cryptocurrency exchange which offers trading in fiat currencies or popular cryptocurrencies.

Bitstamp is a fully regulated company which offers users an intuitive interface, a high degree of security for your digital assets, excellent customer support and multiple withdrawal methods.

Buy BTC with Bitstamp today

Bitcoin price climbed higher above the $16,800 resistance. BTC could rise further if it clears the $17,000 and $17,050 levels.

• Bitcoin is slowly moving higher above the $16,800 and $16,850 resistance levels.
• The price is trading above $16,700 and the 100 hourly simple moving average.
• There is a major bullish trend line forming with support near $16,700 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair (data feed from Kraken).
• The pair could rise steadily if there is a close above the $17,000 resistance.

Bitcoin Price Climbs Higher

Bitcoin price remained stable above the $16,500 support zone. BTC started a decent increase and was able to clear the $16,800 resistance level.

The price even surged above the $16,850 level and the 100 hourly simple moving average. There was a spike towards the $17,000 level. A high was formed near $16,987 and the price is now correcting gains. There was a minor move below the $16,900 level.

The price spiked below the 50% Fib retracement level of the recent increase from the $16,614 swing low to $16,987 high. Bitcoin price is now trading above $16,700 and the 100 hourly simple moving average.

There is also a major bullish trend line forming with support near $16,700 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair. On the upside, an immediate resistance is near the $16,900 level.

Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com

The next major resistance is near the $17,000 zone. A proper close above the $17,000 resistance might start a steady increase in the near term. In the stated case, the price may perhaps rise towards the $17,500 level. Any more gains might send the price towards the $18,000 level in the coming sessions.

Dips Limited in BTC?

If bitcoin price fails to climb the $17,000 resistance, it could start a downside correction. An immediate support on the downside is near the $16,750 level.

The 61.8% Fib retracement level of the recent increase from the $16,614 swing low to $16,987 high is also near the $16,750 level. The next major support is near the $16,700 level and the trend line. A clear move below the $16,700 support might send the price towards the $16,500 level. Any more losses might send the price towards $16,350.

Technical indicators:

Hourly MACD – The MACD is now losing pace in the bullish zone.

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for BTC/USD is now above the 50 level.

Major Support Levels – $16,750, followed by $16,700.

Major Resistance Levels – $16,900, $17,000 and $17,500.

New Delhi: The global cryptocurrency market was trading lower on Wednesday amid a cautious sentiment in the last trading week of 2022. Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin were trading with cuts, while Binance and XRP were trading with marginal gains.

Bitcoin fell 1.23% and traded between $16,500-$17,000 levels. Ethereum dipped below the $1,200 mark.

Top crypto tokens traded lower. Dogecoin declined 4.22% while Cardano, Polygon and Tron were also in the red. However, Binance rose about 0.6%.

The global cryptocurrency market cap was trading lower, barely holding $800 billion, down 1.35% in the last 24 hours.

The total volume in DeFi is currently $2.18 billion, 7.71% of the total crypto market 24-hour volume. The volume of all stablecoins is now $26.08 billion, which is 91.96% of the total crypto market 24-hour volume.

The market cap of Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, hovered around $320 billion, with a dominance of about 40%, an increase of 0.03% over the day, according to CoinMarketCap.

Crypto Cart: Quick

• Bitcoin $16,674.29 -1.23%
• Ethereum $1,198.86 -1.97%
• Tether $0.9998 -0.01%
• USD Coin $1 0.01%
• BNB $244.95 0.68%
• XRP $0.3608 0.29%
• Dogecoin 0.07187 -4.34%
• Cardano $0.2556 -3.02%
• Polygon $0.7934 -2.33%
• Polkadot $4.44 -1.71%
• Tron $0.05419 -0.79%
• Litecoin $68.61 -2.62%
• Shiba Inu $0.000008112 -2.09%
• Solana $10.76 -4.35%

Note: Price change in last 24 hours (Source:
coinmarketcap.com, data as of 10.05 hours, IST on December 28, 2022)

Global updates
US-based crypto exchange Kraken said on Wednesday that it would cease its operations in Japan next month, citing the current market conditions in the country and a weak crypto market globally.

Kraken will deregister from the Financial Services Agency (JFSA) as of January 31, by which time clients would have to withdraw their fiat and crypto holdings, it said in a statement.

Kraken said it is fully funded to ensure that all affected clients could withdraw their assets in a timely manner.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)