Over the last day or so, Bitcoin’s price made a dash towards the $12,000 mark and on some South Korean exchanges, it indeed successfully broke through that resistance. The BTC Global Average however failed to follow suit. What’s more, over the last few hours, it entered a bit of a mini-correction, dipping below $11,000, before edging marginally higher yet again.
What’s interesting about this latest Bitcoin rally is that it is driven by fundamentals once again originating in South Korea, namely: increased demand. Despite all the gloom and doom that transpired in that country over the last couple of months crypto exchange-wise, it looks like the fundamentals are indeed still sound, and that they are set on eventually driving the price of the world’s most popular crypto back towards its all-time highs.
Let us first consider technical analysis though. Indicators are all over the place, though the overall outlook is a bullish one, pointing to “buy” by quite a margin.
Oscillators are marginally favoring “sell” though. Three of them: the CCI, the Momentum and the Williams Percent Range point to sell, while only two of them indicate “buy”: the Awesome Oscillator and the MACD. All the others point to a Neutral outlook.
The situation is different in the Moving Averages department though, where the vast majority of indicators point to “buy”. Only three buck this trend: the Simple MA (50), the Simple MA (100) and the Hull Moving Average (9). Everything else indicates “buy”, with the overall one-day technical analysis sentiment settling on “buy” as well.
Indeed, as seen on the chart above, the BTC/USD pair seems to have settled into an upward-moving channel of higher highs and higher lows, and this latest mini-correction fits that picture nicely. The stochastic oscillator has already entered oversold territory, with its lines crossing and pointing to yet another imminent bullish uptick.
A possible break above the $12,300 mark would signal the end of the bear market. If this resistance were to be broken, a revisiting of the $17,178 level would indeed be in the books.
On the downside, breaking below $10,297 would trigger another mini-selloff, which would take the price of the currency all the way down to the $9,000 mark.
The fundamentals are pointing towards a return of confidence in the South Korean markets, spurred in no small part by the latest announcements of the Financial Supervisory Service, according to which, South Korean authorities will support “normal” cryptocurrency trading. It remains to be seen exactly what this new stance translates to, though it is clear that it is a softening of the previous official line, which left a complete ban on exchanges threateningly on the table.
According to more recent rumors, the country is currently considering something akin to New York’s BitLicense, in regards to the regulation of its cryptocurrency exchanges.
In other news: the recent coincheck hack has apparently prompted a group of Japanese cryptocurrency exchanges to band together in an effort to form a self-regulatory body. Some 16 exchanges would become members of the new group, the basis of which would be laid through the merger of the Japan Blockchain Association and the Japan Cryptocurrency Business Association.
The new organization would be registered with Japan’s FSA (Financial Services Association). Apparently, Coincheck, the unlicensed exchange where the massive theft took place, might be one of the members of the above said association.
Ethereum has had its own struggles in recent days, testing its own resistance levels, and nose-diving after failing to break through. For ETH, this level was $940. Following its failure to log gains above this point, the price of ETH briefly dipped all the way below the $880 support.
Forextraders' Broker of the Month
BlackBull Markets is a reliable and well-respected trading platform that provides its customers with high-quality access to a wide range of asset groups. The broker is headquartered in New Zealand which explains why it has flown under the radar for a few years but it is a great broker that is now building a global following. The BlackBull Markets site is intuitive and easy to use, making it an ideal choice for beginners.