Markets Report: Bitcoin battles final resistance before $58K all-time highs

Bitcoin beat two-week highs on March 10 as bulls propelled the largest cryptocurrency into final resistance at $56,000.

Data from price trackers including CoinmarketCap and Tradingview showed strength continuing in BTC/USD on Wednesday. After a brief regression closer to $53,000, upside returned, with press-time levels circling $56,000.

$60,000 BTC “just one corporate announcement away”

Overnight, the pair had reached $55,700 before hitting resistance, the last band in place on order books below current all-time highs at $58,300.

For popular trader Michaël van de Poppe, Bitcoin getting rejected at its first attempt to break through that resistance was expected, and overall bullishness remained intact.

“So far, everything fine,” he summarized to Twitter followers, calling the $56,000 rejection “beautiful.” 

“If the $52,000 area holds, we can see further sideways action and renewed tests of $56,000. However, once again, $52,000 is critical to hold to avoid further downwards moves.”

Wednesday’s $56,400 marked Bitcoin’s highest since February 22.

Fresh news of institutional Bitcoin buy-ins kept the mood positive on the day, despite the lack of a rumored major announcement from U.S. multinational Oracle. As Modern Consensus reported, these involved the company reportedly purchasing 72,000 BTC, with an announcement allegedly due on Wednesday.

Nevertheless, the the investment trend clear, market participants were expecting the cycle of price upside and new professional investment announcements to continue.

“60K Bitcoin is one corporate announcement of $BTC on the balance sheet away,” Scott Melker tweeted.

In a further development on the institutional side, Digital Currency Group, the parent company of asset manager Grayscale, announced plans to purchase up to $250 million in shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC).

The in-house move follows turbulent times for GBTC, which last week traded at a 13% discount to the Bitcoin spot price—the biggest in its three-year history. Competition in the space, notably from Canada’s recently-launched exchange-traded funds (ETFs), is thought to have fuelled the fire.

At the same time, Grayscale is itself hiring ETF specialists, a sign that the company is preparing to launch a product on the lagging U.S. market, which has yet to approve a single such offering.

Ether inches closer to $2,000

Altcoins meanwhile benefited from Bitcoin’s action, with several of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap even outperforming its daily gains.

Largest altcoin Ether saw 1.3% upside in the 24 hours to press time, with number three token Binance Coin reaching 6.8%.

“Everything looks bullish to me on this ETH/USD chart. I am actually arguably more bullish on Ethereum moving forward than Bitcoin for the foreseeable future because I think it has a lot more upside,” Melker added in a separate update. 

Ether briefly hit $1,880 on the day, coming increasingly close to a retest of $2,000 levels which have only seen one visit, this occurring around the same time as Bitcoin’s all-time highs last month.

An outlier was Cardano, which stayed flat on the back of 6% weekly losses.