Bitcoin Inching Up Toward $7k Again, Alts Perform Well; Otherwise Uncertainty

Rangebound Bitcoin Gives Alts Room to Breath in Somewhat Uncertain Times

Bitcoin has been rather rangebound recently, bouncing between strong support in the mid-$6ks and some resistance around $7k. Meanwhile, many alts have preformed well in this environment. Otherwise, we are in uncertain times (either at the end of a bear market, or consolidating before another eventual move down).

UPDATE: In retrospect alts heating up was a signal that we were about to see some big price action for BTC and ETH. Remember that for next time. Patterns don’t always repeat, but sometimes they do… and this would most certainly be one to watch for.

The eventual future aside, for today this means there is some money to be made for traders (who want to trade the range) and there is potentially some money to be made for investors (assuming this range is the bottom and not a prelude to destruction).

Previously (and arguably still as we speak) the market had been pretty clearly bearish with but a few signs of hope. Those hope signs tended to come in the form of epic pumps and FOMO buying (one attempt at $16k, two at $11.6, two at $9.1k, now roughly four at $7k – $7.5k).

Speaking in terms of Bitcoin, these attempts at recovery have resulted in short periods in which big pumps have offred us quick chances at gains (but have been followed by quick dumps and many chances at losses).

Alts followed Bitcoin in that journey of big ups and downs and recovery attempts, almost always underperforming Bitcoin at every step of the way, dumping harder than their big brother at almost every point, and sometimes not even bothering to run when he did.

This held true up until the other week ago. This being true to the extent that alts pretty much followed Bitcoin as it entered its last correction from $9k to $6.5k.

However, this has changed somewhat in this current increasingly less volatile $6k – $7k range.

Altcoins have made some pretty seizable and steady gains in this range in times when Bitcoin made its way up, and haven’t taken that big of losses every time Bitcoin has lost steam and headed back toward the mid $6ks.

The result here isn’t “moon”… instead it is something I think is more valuable, it is “a somewhat stable Bitcoin market giving altcoins a room to actually do something other than lose money.”

NICE!

Ethereum has stood out in all this (and this makes sense, Ethereum often leads alts historically speaking, especially when XRP doesn’t). After falling all the way to around $370, Ethereum (or Ether) has risen all the way to $420.

A few others like Verge, TRX, NEO, and ZRK have stood out as well. In fact Verge has really stood out, it is almost acting like it is January again (shh, don’t tell him guys, he doesn’t know any better; TIP: that makes Verge both attractive and way more risky than your average alt, watch out for FOMO and social media pumpers).

This type of movement isn’t unprecedented in terms of what we have seen since the January correction set in, but it is notable in being one of the longer stretches of Bitcoin being reasonable and alts preforming well since that correction.

• This could all be a temporary pit stop on our way to true lows.
• Or, the bottom could be in and alts could be showing signs of recovering along with Bitcoin (maybe all this alt action shows that crypto is about to take off again).
• Or, maybe the whales know they are about to get harpooned and are trying to squeeze one last round out of altcoins before Bitcoin falls below $6k and enters a longer term bear market? <— not this please.
• Or maybe, just maybe, cryptocurrency is finding a fair market price range that benefits miners, traders, longs, shorts, users, businesses, and everyone in between? <— that would be cool.
• Maybe Satoshi’s dream is coming true and we’ll be able to use cryptos for payments soon?! Maybe the days of this being a wild 24/7 global casino are over?! <— yeah right.

I mean, almost certainly not that last one, but since it is impossible to say, let’s at least throw the idea out there.

All this said, as much as me, my crypto investments, and my “I run a crypto site for a living, God these past months have sucked” want everything to both increase in value and be steady… I’m also not blind or ignorant to the short and insane history of cryptocurrency in terms of value.

There is very little historic precedent for stability and very little precedent for everyone getting lambos. Instead, there is precedent for a long term bear market first and foremost, the moon at some point in the distant future, and for epic ups and downs in our near future regardless of which path we take.

The problem with getting overly happy here is that we still haven’t seen true capitulation (where people who have been invested since the fall or before start locking in profits and cutting losses), we haven’t yet seen a 2014. Simply put, we haven’t seen the early adopters and early-ish adopters (including me by the way) experience the same pain as those they roped into crypto (those who came in late). That seems a little too easy for me, and certainly I’m cool with not feeling the full brunt of what crypto historically has had to offer myself…but, we will see.

The reality is, the current path is still unclear and no one has any business calling it. We stand on the edge of a few potential worlds while the bulls have their eye on finding a way all the way back to the all time high (something that seems a little absurdly far away right now) and the bears have their eye on early 2017 prices (also seems far away right now).

It is fun to analyze our environment and muse on crypto, but predicting what will happen or giving investment advice based on that is way out of scope of the site and beyond my ability (or, given how confusing crypto is right now, not even that rational).

I’ll only say this in terms of crypto trading and investing:

1. Being conservative is always smart (so average is essentially always a safer move than go all in based on emotion). If the end result is that you are happy if it goes up or down, you probably have a nice balance of cash and crypto.
2. It is never wise to get overly confident in the mood of the day and ignore history…
3. Although reacting to your environment is smart (it is the key to evolution actually). Don’t get thrown off your game by the current market conditions, be they good, bad or sideways.
4. It is always prudent to follow your own investment strategy and/or seek professional advice (but when in doubt, be conservative and practice capital preservation).
5. Meanwhile, it is almost always a bad idea to base moves 100% on anything anyone says online from social media groups, to TradingView, to our site. Everyone has an angle based on their holdings, and people tend to get FOMO or seek to pump or dump coins (making them untrustworthy sources of information).

The Bottomline

The mood of the day is somewhat optimistic with alts having some room to breath while Bitcoin and its little brother Litecoin keep a tight (but historically reasonable) range.

However, we don’t want to confuse optimism with a being in a bull market. The range is being created by bulls and bears fighting over increasingly tight resistance and support levels and the reality is this could break either way (and it could break really hard either way, by the way, there is crazy short and long margin positions built up that can be “squeezed”).

We still haven’t seen $4k Bitcoins, we haven’t seen $80 Litecoins, we haven’t seen $200 Ether, we haven’t seen many alts sent to the graveyard, and that means we haven’t really seen a true crash yet (just a correction from the pump to $20k).

We have seen true crashes in Bitcoin’s history, we have seen many alt bubbles pop. It would seem a little odd to get away so clean this time after hitting an epic all time high… but, it is crypto, we don’t know!

So things are looking up in the moment, but there is lots of precedent for this not to last, being the point.

In fact, in 2018 and through much of cryptos history, “things actually looking up – finally” has essentially meant “things about to get bad again very shortly – you getting FOMO dude.”  That said, if you approach crypto with too much skepticism an doubt, then you’ll either miss the rocket when it takes off or be late to the party (look at how alts died up until the December rally and then went bananas, you need to be quick to do a mindset change with cryptos).

Given all the above, it helps to stay positive through the good and bad and position your investments in a way that facilities an outcome you’ll be comfortable with no matter which way the winds blow.

I like to try to balance my crypto holdings and cash in a way that leaves me moderately happy regardless of which direction the market goes, but maybe for you its all about taking margin positions to hedge, or maybe its just about HODLing your life savings in crypto and you are reading this to kill the time. I don’t know? I’m not you. Everyone is going to play this there own way.

There have been easier times to be bullish on crypto long term, there have been easier times to be bearish. The market is a little undecided, yet there is lots of room to play your hand right.

TIP: Watch out for quick and rapid sell-offs. We have had a few major sell-offs in this range. They have come on very quickly and left people with almost no room to get out. Any high we see in this range could be the high from here out, any bottom we see could be the lowest price we’ll ever see. That is always true, but it is especially true here due to a complex host of factors related to psychology and technical analysis.

NOTE: As I write this we are around $6.94k, RSI is high across the board, we are about to run up against a bunch of resistance, the overall chart of the entire crypto market since January still looks “not great,” and let’s be honest… this range could be like a fist balling up waiting to smash through support levels as much as it could resistance… so we are so far from out of the woods that even metaphors about being on a path that leads out of the woods are ill timed. Still, Bitcoin’s price is low in terms of recent history, it is somewhat rangebound, and alts seem to want to move. That is better than what most of 2018 has offered us. Yay! Now let’s not get sucked into a suckers rally right before everyone pulls out their money for the tax man by April 17th (that could happen).