Bitcoin (BTC) Trims Gains but Investors Still Eyeing $9,500 and $10,000 before Halving

Bitcoin (BTC) Trims Gains but Investors Still Eyeing $9,500 and $10,000 before Halving

By Oliver Carding - min read
Updated 22 May 2020

Bitcoin spiked over $1,000 to hit a high of $9,455 against the U.S. dollar but has corrected lower in early Asian trading hours.

·         The intraday price surge was BTC’s best 24-hour move in the past two months.

·         BTC price could see a reversal to lows of $8,400 before another surge takes it to above $9,500.

Bitcoin price is correcting lower on the day after a 24-hour rally took it to a high of $9,455. The cryptocurrency’s strong performance saw it surpass resistance levels at $8,000 and 8,500. The 22% price surge against the U.S. dollar took it to within $9,500, but the pair has declined 56% on the day.

BTC’s most recent rally included breaking past three major price level indicators: the 200-day simple moving average (SMA) and the 200-day exponential moving average (EMA). It also broke above the 0.618 Fibonacci level at the $3,600-$14,000 retracement level.

But yesterday’s price action saw Bitcoin retrace nearly 11% from its daily high to test lows at around $8,400. The digital asset’s recovery to trade around $8,800 is currently under pressure.

As seen on Coin360, the BTC/USD pair has trimmed gains by over 6% to trade at around $8,790 (Friday, May 1, 2020, 5:56 UTC). 

Courtesy of coin360.com May 1, 2020

Bitcoin investors eye pre-halving rally

In surging to new monthly highs, Bitcoin overtook gold as the best performing asset of 2020. The leading crypto has gained nearly 30% in overall performances in the past 4 months despite a mid-March crash that took it to lows of $3,800.

Over the same timeframe, the price of gold has increased by close to 13%.

Another asset, silver, has seen its value decline by about 14% while crude oil crashed massively in April to see its price down 70% in 2020.

Bitcoin investors are keen to continue the trend with a pre-halving rally that will consolidate its recovery from the crash that wiped $4k from its value.

According to one analyst, Bitcoin’s surge is connected to investor optimism ahead of the halving event.

Speaking to The Independent, IG senior analyst Joshua Mahony said:

“As things stand we are in line to post a 182 per cent rise for bitcoin since the lows of December 2018, and the surge we are currently seeing paints a bullish picture for the months following this third halving.

For bitcoin bulls, a fresh rally to $9,500 and $10,000 pre-halving remains the target even as a slight pullback cannot be discounted in the coming days.

Bulls need to push it past the current initial resistance at $8,800 as seen on the hourly chart. Past that, a major push could open upside to $9,200 and then $9,500.