Key Points
- Bitcoin’s Christmas rally fades as it fails to surpass the $100k-mark, maintaining a bearish structure on the 4-hour chart.
- Despite a bearish trend, top traders show a bullish sentiment, hinting at a potential price bounce.
Bitcoin’s [BTC] Christmas rally seemed to lose momentum, failing to breach the $100k threshold. This came in the wake of a two-day U.S. Federal Reserve meeting that concluded on 17 December, which predicted only two interest rate cuts in 2025, as opposed to the previously anticipated four.
This forecast resulted in a 2.5% drop in the Dow Jones, equivalent to a little over 1,150 points. While these losses have been recouped, the impact on Bitcoin has been less forgiving.
Bitcoin’s Bearish Trend and the Crypto Market
The broader cryptocurrency market generally mirrors Bitcoin’s trend. Over the past 24 hours, BTC has dipped by 2.75%, and the altcoin market has lost 2.31% of its value. The 4-hour chart reveals that Bitcoin’s bearish market structure continues to persist.
This bearish flip occurred on 19 December. Since then, the A/D indicator has been gradually decreasing, indicating diminished buying pressure. The moving average formed a bearish crossover, further emphasizing the downward momentum over the past ten days.
Short-Term Hope for Bitcoin?
Despite the bearish trend, data from Binance top trader positions using Coinglass data suggests some short-term optimism. This metric, which assesses the long or short positions held by the top 20% of traders, was recorded at 1.95.
Long positions made up 66.12%, and shorts accounted for 33.88% – an indication of bullish sentiment among top traders. The liquidation map supports this short-term bullish hypothesis. The liquidations to the north were more numerous, suggesting that a liquidity hunt to the north is likely in the coming days.
Based on data from the past week, a price move might be halted at the $97.6k-mark and rebuffed by sellers. As we approach the end of 2024, we can expect further volatility.
