The past 24 hours for the Bitcoin price have been absolutely absurd. This morning, BTC found itself up by 20% on the day, trying to break past key resistances just shy of $14,000. All this changed though with a rapid flash crash.
For those who missed the memo, within a matter of 15-odd minutes, Bitcoin slipped, showing an uncharacteristic bout of weakness in a massive uptrend. In fact, within the aforementioned time span, BTC fell from $13,800 — a year-to-date high — to just under $12,000.
As of the time of writing this, BTC is trading at $12,800, having recovered quite strongly off the dip. During the aforementioned move, exchanges struggled to keep up. Ethereum World News’ Cole Petersen noted that Coinbase’s entire platform, both on mobile and desktop, temporarily stopped working.
This writer has corroborated those claims, as he was temporarily greeted with an error message on Coinbase.com before service resumed minutes later.
According to other reports made by users, other platforms have also seen some difficulty operating during this massive flash crash. One investor even drew attention to Binance, which to him/her stopped working for a short period of time. This writer has anecdotally confirmed that the crypto exchange is operating slower than normal.
Bitcoin Correction Still on The Table
Despite the rapid nature of this move, coupled with the fact that it was a 18% drawdown, some have suggested that now Bitcoin is set to move higher. But as commentator SAD (Sad And Decrypt) points out, BTC is still abiding by a parabolic curve that stretches back to 2018’s $3,150 bottom. This suggests that the aforementioned $2,000 flash crash may not be accurately defined as a “real” dip, meaning that a correction is still on the table. SAD isn’t the only one with this thought process.
Travis Kling of Ikigai, for instance, notes that Bitcoin “is going to pull back”. He claims that it has done so over its history many times, with there being 12 pullbacks of over 30%, and six of over 70%.
From a technical and sentimental perspective, the recent pullback does leave more to be desired for bears. You see, the Fear & Greed Index recently hit 95 — the highest reading in its history. With many in the cryptocurrency investment space abiding by contrarian thought, many believe that this signals a top, at least in the short term.
And, as Magic points out, $13,800 is the 61.8% retracement of the entire bear market. The fact that BTC pulled back right at that level is not the best sign, that’s for sure.
Some are sure that cryptocurrencies are going to continue chugging higher though. As reported by Ethereum World News yesterday, Naeem Aslam believes that as long as BTC stays above the 242-day moving average, which is somewhat unorthodox compared to the traditional 50 or 200-day, a correction is unlikely. In fact, he quips that in the long run, Bitcoin is likely to enter the $60,000 to $100,000 range — just around six to ten times higher than current levels.
