Bitcoin continued to crisscross the corridor between $11,000 and $12,000 on August 13 as a lack of volume failed to send markets higher.
Data from price trackers including CoinMarketCap showed BTC/USD extend “ranging” behavior on Thursday, consolidating after weeks of upward momentum.
An uptick at press time sent the pair to $11,620 before energy appeared to wane, sending it back below the $11,500 mark.
Discussing the latest movements, popular analyst filbfilb said that $12,000 would remain a challenging level to crack.
“$11,600 is the level to watch. Clear and find support and ill be longing to $12k again,” he told Telegram subscribers.
“Not convinced we would clear that though. Probably need to do more time here.”
Filbfilb previously hinted he would be looking to buy in should BTC/USD retreat to around $11,200.
Fellow trader Josh Rager was also more demanding when it comes to extending Bitcoin’s bull case, requesting a daily close above $11,900 on Wednesday which failed to materialize.
“Price came down, retested and has bounced – will look for continuation to the upside,” he commented to Twitter followers.
Altcoins edge up against Bitcoin
Less upside for Bitcoin is meanwhile a ticket for further gains for altcoins, Michaël van de Poppe at the Amsterdam Stock Exchange predicted.
With BTC/USD overall flat on the day, major altcoins stepped in to fill the void, led by Chainlink, which delivered 18% returns.
Largest altcoin Ether likewise hovered near recent highs, just below $400, on the back of 1.7% daily gains.
The latest advances by altcoins further knocked Bitcoin’s share of the overall cryptocurrency market cap, sending it below 60% for the first time in more than a year.
Hodler behavior metric flips bullish
Under the hood, however, technical analysis provided cause for optimism. In its latest weekly update, The Week On-Chain, monitoring resource Glassnode highlighted Bitcoin’s so-called STH-MVRV (short-term holder market cap value [against] realized cap value) ratio as a fresh suggestion that bulls are set to remain in control.
MVRV is the relationship between Bitcoin’s market cap and realized cap, an alternative measurement which Modern Consensus recently reported on.
“By comparing these two metrics, MVRV can be used to get a sense of when an asset’s price is above or below ‘fair value,’ thereby helping to spot market tops and bottoms. Short-Term Holder MVRV looks specifically at UTXOs (unspent transaction outputs) younger than 155 days, indicating the behavior of short-term investors,” Glassnode explained.
“Historically, when this metric has emerged from below 1 and reached 1.25, this has marked the start of bull markets. Currently, STH-MVRV is sitting at above 1.26, providing a bullish signal.”
Analysts were still buoyed by institutional noises from earlier in the week, led by MicroStrategy’s $250 million BTC buy. As Modern Consensus noted, the company’s CEO confirmed that it would favor Bitcoin as its treasury reserve asset going forward, not cash or another safe haven such as gold.
Other big business would have to follow suit, commentators subsequently said.
