From Decrypt · By Jose Antonio Lanz
In brief
Bitcoin fell as low as $81,749.83 today, undercutting the $82,776.30 floor flagged yesterday, and trades near $82,486.
Bitcoin ETFs lost $484.9 million on Oct. 7, their worst day since June, while 87.5% of the $429 million liquidated over 24 hours were long positions.
Uptober is turning out red so far, but the charts suggest Bitcoin has a ways to go before things get scary.
October, known as Uptober in crypto circles, is supposed to be the month Bitcoin gives investors their biggest gains—but the crypto market looks poised to flip the script once again.
Bitcoin today is sliding again, with a 2.67% drop in the last 24 hours to $81,125, nearly erasing half of the crypto asset’s gains in September. The movements are essentially the inverse of typically reliable historical patterns: a “Red September” followed by Uptober—yet, ironically, the same trend-breaking pattern occurred last year.
Myriad: How low will Bitcoin go? Click to make your prediction.
As far as potential reasons for Bitcoin’s sagging price of late, BTC currently has a macro backdrop working against it.
Wall Street retreated from record highs on Wednesday as Brent crude hovered near $100 a barrel and Treasury yields stayed near their highest since 2002, while the minutes from the most recent Federal Reserve meeting showed most officials expect another rate hike before year end.
These headwinds have been weighing on Bitcoin for some time now. Yesterday's downward move for BTC is slowing down but not stopping. Bitcoin yesterday sold off alongside stocks and gold, but still flagged a bullish daily chart against a bearish four-hour chart.
That split is still there today.
Bitcoin price: the daily trend holds, with less cushion
Today's daily candle opened at $83,310.16, and wasn’t able to go much higher, barely touching $83,475.78, only to drop to lows at around $81,337, down 2.37%. That low undercut the $82,776.30 floor flagged yesterday and left BTC below a short-term price zone $82,626.41
Bitcoin moved sideways between roughly $83,000 and $87,000 for more than two weeks after the $87,354.33 peak on Sept. 21, and now trades about 5.6% below it.
The Average Directional Index, or ADX, measures trend strength regardless of direction, and readings above 25 confirm a trend. The daily ADX is 40.7, down from 42.8 yesterday, with buying pressure (+DI) still ahead of selling pressure (-DI), but slowly cooling down the bullish sentiment.
The 50-day exponential moving average, or EMA, which weighs the price of an asset over the last 50 days, remains above the 200-day EMA, which traders read as an intact long-term uptrend. The golden cross, arguably the quintessential bullish signal in technical analysis, remains in play on the daily trend, but is starting to recede on the intra-day timeframes, with Bitcoin approaching the EMA200 line.