Crypto rests after another rise

By Alex Kuptsikevich

Market picture

The cryptocurrency market is near 6-week highs, with capitalisation near $2.44 trillion, adding 0.5% in the last 24 hours. A wait-and-see attitude and some profit-taking replaced active buying in the last three days starting Friday. Judging by the dynamics, the market prefers to stand still, waiting for new signals, which may be statements from politicians or important economic data scheduled for the second half of the week.

Bitcoin is trading near $67.2K, losing 0.7% since the beginning of the day. Growth has lost traction near the upper boundary of the descending channel resistance. Here, the first cryptocurrency may linger for a few days, staying within the pattern of the last five months. Prior to that, on Friday, the 50-day moving average served as an important support and launching pad for the latest growth momentum. Bitcoin will need to overcome $71K to confirm the break of the downward consolidation, which we believe will be in the next few days. Also, there may be a new attempt to drag down the price back below the 50-day MA (now near $63.7K) during this retreat.

News background

As a result of another recalculation, the mining difficulty of the first cryptocurrency increased by 3.21% - to 82.05T - after three weeks of decline. The average hashrate for the period since the previous value change was 646.59 EH/s.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) said the first five spot Ethereum-ETFs in the US will launch in just a few days - on 23 July. The SEC approved the launch of such funds on 23 May, but companies had to agree to a Form S-1 filing with the regulator before listing.

Binance CEO Richard Teng said Spot Ethereum-ETFs will provide stable and significant capital inflows over time. He also said product inflows are unlikely to be massive initially.

According to CryptoQuant, crypto whales with balances of 1,000 BTC or more bought 1.45 million coins worth $94 billion in 2024, with their total crypto wallet holdings growing to 1.8 million BTC. Meanwhile, investors continue to add 100,000 bitcoins to their wallets each week.

Julian Bittel, head of macroeconomic research at financial publication Global Macro Investor, said Bitcoin could reach $140K-$190K over the next twelve months. He pointed out the compression of the "Bollinger Bands" on the weekly chart, which has only been seen twice, in April 2016 and July 2023, and then led to a significant rise.

Speculation has begun on social media about a reserve bitcoin fund in the United States, which presidential candidate Donald Trump will allegedly announce at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, which will be held from 25 to 27 July. It is expected that the basis for the US Bitcoin reserves will be the confiscated cryptocurrency in the amount of more than 213,000 BTC.

About the author

Alex Kuptsikevich is a financial market professional with 16-years’ experience and a senior financial analyst at FxPro. He is the author of daily reviews on the impact of economic events with comments featured in top international and Russian media. Alex covers fundamental analysis, global markets, the foreign exchange market, gold, oil, and cryptocurrencies in his analytical pieces. As the senior financial analyst at FxPro, Alex is a guest expert in 1-tier global media such as Forbes, Coindesk, Euromoney and Morning Star.