Bitcoin Price Analysis: Bulls Too Confident, Too Soon

Bitcoin Price Analysis: Bulls Too Confident, Too Soon

After the sharp decline for BTC price yesterday retesting the low $3,500s we take a closer look at whats going on with the market.

bitcoin Price: 4-Hour BTC Chart

bitcoin price 00 has failed to regain the critical $3750 point of control so far this week and is still consolidating under it after being rejected by the $4k handle and scuppering the short term hopes of an inverse head and shoulders bottom.

Last night saw the price fall from highs of $3680 and a subsequent bounce back today, before once again being rejected and settle around $3600, but seemingly continues to be drawn towards the mid $3000s rather than pressing on to new highs.

Sentiment Analysis

Looking more closely at the market we can see that the sentiment in the market is bullish, with longs out weighing shorts by 30k to 22k at Bitfinex.

While this may suggest that the market believes that there is hope that the bottom is in and upside can be expected, the issue is that generally speaking, the longs at 30k is reaching the maximum levels the market tends to see, with these positions being built all the way down to $6k.

During this time, short positions have also closed from 40k down to 22k.

This means that despite the buying pressure of both combined, the market remains stuck around the mid $3ks, which is the 61% retracement of the bounce from $3.1k.

Looking at the total leverage exposure, this is also beginging to reach out towards the 50k lows that we have previously seen.  As highlighted on the chart, it becomes clear that where we have seen these conditions in the past, we have seen a sharp selloff to retest the lows.

bitcoin is therefore starting to reveal some underlying weakness in its market posture and indicates that another retest of the low $3ks could be on the horizon in the near future.

With CBOE XBT futures expiring today, there may be some hope of a short term relief rally as we have seen previously but generally speaking it seems likely that BTC price needs to prove its metal at the $3.1ks before we move higher.

[Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this article are the personal opinion of the author and do not reflect the views of BTCist. The information in the article should not be taken as financial advice.]

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Does BTC price action suggest we will head lower? Where is the bottom? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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Published at Wed, 16 Jan 2019 14:00:11 +0000