- Bitcoin price stable below $4,200
- Bitcoin market cap share is 52 percent
- Transaction volumes low but bullish divergence could help lift prices
Most crypto exchanges are deliberately inflating volumes according to a follow up analysis by Open Market Cap (OMC). After making their findings public, OMC concludes that Bitcoin trade volumes are up-to 6X those of Ethereum. We expect Bitcoin (BTC) trade volumes to spike once bulls breach $4,500.
Bitcoin Price Analysis
Fundamentals
After Bitwise revelations, Open Market Cap took it upon themselves to re-affirm just “how cryptocurrency volumes are overstated.” And the results are dizzying. OMC findings lay bare the level of disguise, deception and cheating employed by exchanges for profit’s sake. What’s discouraging is that only 10 out of the more than 50 exchanges are honest and broadcasting correct volumes of traded assets.
“Even when factoring out wash trading, the daily trading volume for Bitcoin on trusted exchanges is large enough to sustain a healthy market. For most small-cap coins, this is not the case. A 95% drop in trading volume means the market for most alts is extremely illiquid/non-existent.”
These honest exchanges include Binance, CoinBase, Bitstamp, Winklevoss’s Gemini, BitFinex, Bittrex BitFlyer, Kraken and Poloniex. When Open Market Cap re-ranks assets based on crypto-to-fiat or crypto-to-crypto volumes from these honest exchanges they confirmed Bitwise findings. However, that’s not all. Bitcoin volumes dominate and “are up-to 6X those of ETH.”
Candlestick Arrangement
From the above and according to OMC trackers, the actual market cap is $70,899 million with 24 hours trading volumes of $878 million, stable in the last 24 hours. Most BTC trading is off Binance. In a bullish breakout trade, bulls are yet to close above Mar 16 highs at $4,200 meaning the three-bar bull reversal pattern of Mar 25 to 27 isn’t valid.
As emphasized in our last BTC/USD trade plans, it is imperative for bulls to build momentum and breach this minor resistance level opening doors for $4,500. In return, this shall catalyze participation, drawing demand that shall eventually drive prices to our ideal targets at $6,000.
Technical Indicator
There is a bull divergence, and our reference bar in the short-term is Mar 16 with 13k. Although bullish, Mar 27 bar has light volumes—7.9k. Therefore, from the above, confirmation of Mar 4-5 bulls demand high trade volumes above 13k as the three-bar reversal pattern of Mar 25-27 is validated. When that prints out, risk-off traders can begin buying on dips with first targets at $6,000 in a minor bull breakout trade.
Chart courtesy of Trading View
