Bitcoin starts a new week battling age-old resistance after June began with surprise volatility.
Bitcoin price action depicts a tug-of-war between bulls and bears around old 2021 all-time highs at $69,000 — who will win?
An increasingly unpredictable short-term market landscape has made for interesting viewing — and trading — in June so far. External triggers in the form of United States macroeconomic data have shown themselves capable of flipping crypto trajectory in an instant.
This, combined with liquidity-structuring moves by whales, has so far managed to keep Bitcoin from beating out final resistance on the way to price discovery above $74,000.
While this has frustrated many a market participant, the coming days are set to provide more of the same style of catalyst.
The U.S. will release significant inflation data throughout the week, while the Federal Reserve will hold its latest meeting to discuss interest rate changes.
A glimmer of hope, meanwhile, comes from Bitcoin gradually cementing various support/resistance flips on higher timeframes — something that has not gone unnoticed.
With much at stake for the current trading range, Cointelegraph takes a closer look at these key topics of conversation regarding BTC price action going forward.
BTC price: Rangebound but apt for a shake-up
Bitcoin experienced a contrastingly quiet weekend after sudden macro-induced volatility hit around last week’s final Wall Street trading session.
The $69,000 mark, the site of Bitcoin’s old all-time highs from 2021, formed the market focus, with this continuing into the new Asia session, data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows.
With no breakout up or down, liquidity began to thicken around spot price in classic style, as tracked by monitoring resource CoinGlass, potentially setting up a hunt and, thus, more volatility to come.
“Not much change in spot orderbooks. Ask liquidity firming up around $70.5K – $71K. Bid liquidity firming up around the low $68.5K – $68K,” popular trader Skew concluded in his latest analysis on X.
“Market reaction to sweeping either side of the book will be important early this week imo for reversion or continuation trades.”
Fellow trader Daan Crypto Trades noted the CME Group Bitcoin futures market closing price guiding price into the new week, saying that price action was “as usual” revolving around it.
“I’m assuming this loses its edge once we break this range but until then, it’s a good tool to go by to not get chopped up during the weekends,” he told X subscribers.
Michaël van de Poppe, founder and CEO of trading firm MNTrading, meanwhile described BTC/USD as “consolidating between the two crucial levels.”
“It would be massive to have a breakout at $71.7K, but it’s standard to be conservative during CPI week,” he concluded.
CPI meets Fed meeting in key macro week for crypto
The macro landscape is dominated by two key events this week: the Fed interest rate decision and accompanying press conference, along with the May print of the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
In something of a double whammy for risk-asset volatility, CPI is due for release on the same day as The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) convenes.
“The long anticipated June Fed meeting is officially here with all eyes on Fed guidance,” trading resource The Kobeissi Letter wrote about the upcoming week on X.
The data could turn out to be especially pertinent for crypto traders. Last week, U.S. employment data caused an immediate stir as it vastly beat expectations, briefly sending BTC/USD down nearly 2%.
Commenting on how Bitcoin could react to the inbound data, popular trader CrypNuevo flagged two likely scenarios.
“Scenario 1: Recover the NFP move at the start of the week, consolidate until FOMC comes out, aggresive FOMC move and then retrace FOMC move. Scenario 2: FOMC recovers the NFP move. Until then, we simply consolidate and sweep lows,” part of an X post stated.
CrypNuevo referred to the nonfarm payrolls, or NFP, print which sparked last week’s crypto rout.
Market expectations for Fed policy changes are, in fact, long unchanged — the FOMC will not cut this month, they believe, and it may take several more meetings before the Fed copies central banks elsewhere in cutting them, per data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool.
June 13, meanwhile, is the other major macro data day, with the U.S. releasing the Producer Price Index, or PPI, along with weekly jobless claims.
“But let’s not forget that when economic data shakes the market, those moves tend to get retraced later on. And we have this same case with the NFP’s move 2 days ago,” CrypNuevo wrote in a further post.
“Will we retrace the NFP move before FOMC?”
BTC weekly close nears record high
The weekly close for BTC/USD was significant within the broader consolidation structure in place since March’s $73,800 all-time highs.
As noted by various commentators, including popular trader and analyst Matthew Hyland, the latest close was Bitcoin’s second-highest ever recorded, at $69,630
This comes despite the last-minute dip into the weekend, a portion of which buyers subsequently managed to reverse.
Data from CoinGlass shows that Bitcoin ultimately gained 2.7% last week, with the monthly open still intact as support.
In analysis at the weekend, Daan Crypto Trades said that a weekly close above the 2021 highs of $69,000 “would be a good start to leave this price range behind us.”
“We did it previously but that was on the back of a massive run which needed to cool off,” he noted.
“Could argue that this time $BTC will have a lot more fuel.”
The well-known pseudonymous commentator known as Nunya Bizniz on X meanwhile considered whether the 23% retracement BTC/USD experienced after March’s highs was sufficient compared to previous cycles.
Bitcoin resistance flip is “historical technical feat”
For popular trader and analyst Rekt Capital, there is reason for optimism on BTC price action despite the current rangebound setup.
Analyzing monthly timeframes, he revealed a clear resistance/support flip underway in a key win for the ongoing bull market.
“Bitcoin has performed a historic technical feat in turning a major area of old resistance into new major support,” he summarized at the weekend.
“Bitcoin has since developed a Re-Accumulation Range at these highs which resembles a Bull Flag trend continuation pattern.”
An accompanying chart showed the resistance zone in question to be between $58,600 and $61,300, this defeating bulls in 2021. Now, monthly timeframes show that the tide has turned in their favor.
“Bitcoin continues to consolidate in the Post-Halving Re-Accumulation Range,” he continued alongside a chart comparing Bitcoin bull markets past and present.
“The Range High resistance is ~$71500. The Range Low support is $60600.”
Earlier, Rekt Capital suggested that the current sideways BTC price action could need longer to resolve itself, but that the overall uptrend trend remained firmly intact.
“At the moment, Bitcoin isn’t yet ready to breakout into the Parabolic Phase of the cycle,” he reiterated.
Whales seek “medium-term profits”
“Re-accumulation” not only describes BTC price action this month, but also the habits of Bitcoin whales.
In research for on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant on June 5, contributor Cauê Oliveira argued that large-volume BTC investors are currently loading up on coins for “medium-term profits.”
“Unlike convinced Bitcoin investors, who seek to create long-term reserves, whales generally seek medium-term profits,” he wrote.
“We can easily identify this behavior through the monthly variation of Bitcoin reserves of entities with more than 1,000 BTC.”
An accompanying chart showed the percentage monthly change in whale holdings on a rolling 30-day basis. This is currently modestly climbing after a sharp distribution phase, which followed Bitcoin’s run to all-time highs in mid-March.
“Note that there is a pattern of accumulation and distribution, directly impacting pricing,” Oliveira continued.
“After an intense period of distribution in March, institutional investors began the process of reaccumulation in the last two weeks.”
Oliveira added that whale behavior has already begun to make its presence felt on the market, yet “should intensify in the coming weeks.”
Last week, meanwhile, Cointelegraph reported on the phenomenon of long-dormant BTC returning to circulation in what fellow CryptoQuant analyst J. A. Maartunn at the time also labeled distribution.
