Bitcoin – The Bears Take the Week, But It Could Have Been Worse

Bitcoin fell by 0.94% on Sunday, following a 0.06% rise on Saturday, to end the week up by just 0.31% to $3,597.1.

A relatively choppy day by recent standards saw Bitcoin recover from a start of a day dip to sub-$3,600 levels to strike an early morning intraday high $3,645.7 before being hit by a broad based crypto sell-off.

Coming up short of $3,700 levels and the first major resistance level at $3,713.17, Bitcoin fell through the morning to an early afternoon intraday low $3,541.

The reversal saw Bitcoin fall through the first major support level at $3,586.07 to call on support at the second major support level at $3,540.93 before recovering to $3,600 levels by the late afternoon.

Succumbing to the bearish sentiment through the day, Bitcoin failed to wrap up the day at $3,600 levels for the first time since Monday, the bears managing to reverse the week’s gains.

It could have been far worse had Bitcoin failed to recover from the early afternoon low that had seen Bitcoin fall deep into negative territory for the week.

Elsewhere, it was a mixed bag across the majors. In the red were Stellar’s Lumen, which saw the heaviest losses amongst the top 10, down 8.4% for the week, with Ethereum (-5.19%), Bitcoin Cash SV (-4.2%) and Ripple’s XRP (-3.49%) also seeing heavy losses.

While more moderate losses were seen by Bitcoin Cash ABC, which fell by 1.12%, joining Bitcoin in positive territory for the week were Litecoin, EOS and Tron’s TRX. Litecoin’s gains may have been impressive relative to its peers, up 4.61% for the week, but Tron led the way with a whopping 23% rally, supported by a 1.5% gain on Sunday and 6 days in the green through the week.

Tron’s rally through the week and Stellar Lumen’s reversal saw Tron take the number 8 ranking, by market cap, with very little now separating Tron and Litecoin, which sits behind Tether at number 7.

In spite of the gains seen by Tron and, to a lesser extent, Litecoin, the bearish sentiment was evident across the majors, with Bitcoin at sub-$3,600 levels and Ethereum only just managing to hold onto $110 levels by the week’s end.

There was no major news events to deliver the Sunday moves, with January having failed to deliver for the crypto bulls, Tron’s TRX the only top 10 crypto that has impressed, with Litecoin the only other major to sit in positive territory since the start of the year.

With Bitcoin’s dominance creeping up to 52.8% and the total crypto market cap easing back to $118bn levels, down from a week high $121.7bn reached on Saturday, the bulls will have their work cut out for them as January comes to a close and investors begin to focus on the SEC’s anticipated February decision on the 8 remaining Bitcoin ETF applications that are under review.

The government shutdown is over and the immediate question will be whether the VanEck BTF application will be resubmitted or left on hold until the review of the remaining 8 has been completed.

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At the time of writing, Bitcoin was down 0.7% to $3,571.8, with the bears in full control going into the new week. Bitcoin is going to need to make a move early or face the prospects of a return to sub-$3,500 levels to deliver sub-$3,000 level chatter.

This article was originally posted on FX Empire

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