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Ethereum’s Ether (ETH) token continued its losing streak versus Bitcoin (BTC) for the fifth day in a row as BTC’s price jumped above $30,000 for the first time since June 2022.

ETH/BTC bullish reversal fails midway

On April 11, the ETH/BTC pair dropped nearly 1.6% to 0.0634 BTC to retest multi-month lows.

The ETH/BTC level is down 6.75% from its local peak of 0.0679 BTC set six days ago. It is also just 2% above the pair’s local low of 0.0622 BTC from March 20, showing that Ether’s bullish reversal attempt versus Bitcoin is near failure.

Interestingly, institutional interest also appears to gravitate more toward Bitcoin than Ethereum, according to CoinShares’ weekly report. It shows that the Bitcoin-focused investment funds witnessed inflows worth $56 million in the week ending April 7.

In comparison, the Ethereum-based funds received only $600,000 despite the hype around its long-awaited Shanghai hard fork on April 12.

Bitcoin (BTC) price has finally broken the $30,000 level after the key price zone lasted as a ten months resistance level. BTC price rallied 6.5% on April 10 and the much-awaited price gain ended an agonizing 12-day period of extremely low volatility, which saw the price hovering close to $28,200. Bulls are now confident that the bear market has officially ended, especially considering the fact that BTC price has gained 82% year-to-date.

Another interesting note is, Bitcoin's decoupling from traditional markets has been confirmed, after the S&P 500 index presented a mere 0.1% gain on April 10, and WTI oil traded down 1.2%. Bitcoin traders are likely anticipating the Federal Reserve's interest rate policy to reverse sooner than later.

Stagflation risk could be behind the decoupling

Higher interest rates make fixed-income investments more attractive, while businesses and families face additional costs to refinance their debts. The reversal of the U.S. central bank's recent tightening movement is deemed bullish for risk assets. However, the fear of stagflation — a period of increased inflation and negative economic growth — would be the worst-case scenario for the stock market.

Fixed-income traders are betting that the Federal Reserve probably has one more interest-rate hike because the latest economic data displayed moderate resilience. For instance, the 3.5% U.S. unemployment rate announced on April 7 is the lowest measure in half a century.

The U.S. treasuries market suggests a 76% chance that the Federal Reserve will bolster the benchmark by 0.25% on April 29, according to Bloomberg. There's also the added uncertainty of the banking crisis's impact on the sector, with JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup scheduled to report first-quarter results on Friday.

Bitcoin (BTC) got busy testing $30,000 as new support at the April 11 Wall Street open after hitting new 10-month highs.

$30,000 surge decimates liquidity

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD coming down from an overnight peak near $30,500.

The pair had spent most of the day bouncing from the $30,000 mark after finally passing it in a short squeeze weeks in the making.

Major misgivings from some market participants accompanied the move, with fears centering on a potential correction to $25,000 or even lower.

Takes became more optimistic on longer timeframes, however. The $30,000 push, for instance, cemented popular trader and analyst Rekt Capital’s conviction that Bitcoin had abandoned a bearish double top formation from Q1.

Ronin Network’s native token RON recorded 5x gains since the start of the year thanks to its plans to shift to a Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism and expand its gaming portfolio beyond Axie Infinity.

The gaming-focused layer-2 Ethereum blockchain will change its current Proof-of-Authority to the DPoS consensus mechanism on April 12.

The previous mechanism had around six to nine participants securing and validating transactions on the network, which put the network at a centralization risk. It was the leading cause of the $650 million hack from the Ronin network on March 29, 2022.

The new DPoS consensus mechanism allows RON stakers to earn from the network’s fees and vote on the set of validators operating the network.

Additionally, Sky Mavis, the team behind Axie Infinity and the Ronin Network, is also working on expanding the gaming portfolio of the Ronin Network. On March 30, they announced that four new gaming studios are building on the Ronin Network, including Tribes Studio, Bali Games, Directive Games and Bowled.io.

XRP (XRP) rose 2.1% to $0.52 on April 11, extending its daily gains from $0.50 alongside a broader cryptocurrency market rally, with traders pinning hopes on easing inflation data into April 12.

XRP price: lackluster volumes raise risk of 25% correction

XRP’s upside move brought it closer to breaking out of its prevailing bull pennant range, with a price target of $0.65.

However, lackluster volumes accompanying XRP’s gains hinted at a potential price correction in the future. That could mean a short-term pullback toward the pennant’s lower trendline near $0.51 in April or a broader correction altogether invalidating the bullish continuation setup.

The extended sell-off scenario is best visible on the weekly chart below, wherein a key resistance-turned-support line has limited XRP’s upside prospects.

If the fractal plays out again, XRP’s price will risk falling toward its multimonth ascending trendline support near $0.40 by May, down about 25% from current price levels.

Bitcoin (BTC) held $30,000 as support before the April 11 Wall Street opening, with fresh doubts emerging over the rally’s strength.

BTC price finally tackles $30,000 resistance cloud

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it hit 10-month highs of $30,438 on Bitstamp.

Almost one month in the making, the final surge to $30,000 delighted many traders who considered the move to be a matter of time.

Having uploaded a roadmap showing BTC/USD continuing to gain, Crypto Kaleo argued that Bitcoin was still the best investment allocation for capital, rather than cash or altcoins, at current prices.

“Bitcoin is breaking out, of course all of the USD charts are going to look decently bullish,” part of the day’s Twitter commentary stated.

Bitcoin (BTC) rose to its highest level in ten months on April 10 as traders await this week's April 12 consumer price index report to gain deeper insight into the Federal Reserve's fight against sticky inflation. If the report shows inflation dropping, it could be the next possible catalyst that further's BTC's upward move. 

On April 10, BTC price soared 3.37% to over $29,300 after a quiet Easter weekend. Interestingly, Bitcoin's intraday gains appeared alongside a drop in U.S. equities, a rare decoupling that highlights the coin's diminishing risk-on characteristics.

The pre-CPI dynamic could be in effect

The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release March consumer price index (CPI) data on April 12, which expects to show inflation down to 5.1% from 6.0% year-over-year previously.

A slowdown in headline CPI increases the prospects of the Federal Reserve shifting in a more dovish direction. Conversely, persistent inflationary forces could lead traders to bet on more interest rate hikes in May.

Bitcoin's rise above $29,000 suggest that crypto traders have been pricing in a drop in inflation, which, in turn, could lead to a potential Fed pivot.

Bitcoin (BTC) continues to tread water at the April 10 Wall Street open, but crypto market participants are betting on a serious breakout next.

After a late surge took BTC/USD to its highest weekly close since June 2022, there is new optimism over an attack on $30,000.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows a cool start to the macro trading week, with $28,200 currently forming a focus.

With formidable resistance overhead, however, Bitcoin has spent much of the last week in a firmly established but increasingly narrow trading range.

The longer this holds, the theory goes, the more intense the eventual breakout should be — whether up or down.

Bitcoin (BTC) starts the week on a firm footing as bulls send BTC price to a new 10-month high weekly close.

After a relatively calm week, last-minute volatility is getting traders excited at the prospects of a repeat attack on $30,000 resistance — but a lot stands in the way.

In what is set to be a significant week of macroeconomic data releases, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) print for March is due April 12, along with fresh insights into Federal Reserve policy.

Add to that the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade and it’s a recipe for volatility. How will Bitcoin react?

Volatility correlations between the largest cryptocurrency and traditional risk assets are inverting, data shows, while sentiment data also suggests little appetite for sudden selling among the hodler base.

The long weekend has not produced any fireworks in Bitcoin (BTC) price, which continues to trade inside an ever-narrowing range. Bitcoin is on track to form a third consecutive Doji candlestick pattern on the weekly chart. This suggests that the Bitcoin bulls and the bears are not clear about the next directional move.

It is not only Bitcoin that is stuck inside a range. On April 7, Jurrien Timmer, director of global macro at asset manager Fidelity Investments, tweeted that the S&P 500 Index had been stuck inside a range for the past nine months and a breakout was due “sooner or later.”

Bitcoin’s failure to break above the $30,000 level has attracted profit-booking in several altcoins but a few have witnessed shallow pullbacks. This indicates that traders are holding on to their positions expecting a move higher.

Let’s study the charts of select altcoins that may turn up and start an uptrend if Bitcoin breaks out to the upside. What are the resistance levels above which these five cryptocurrencies turn bullish?

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin has been trading inside a tight range for the past two days, indicating indecision among the bulls and the bears. Usually, tight ranges are followed by an expansion in volatility.

Ethereum's Ether (ETH) token dropped by over 7.5% in its Bitcoin (BTC) pair in 2023. But ETH/BTC may wipe its year-to-date (YTD) losses entirely in April as Ethereum's long-awaited Shanghai hard fork is just days away.

The upgrade is set for April 12, enabling Ethereum stakers to withdraw around 1.1 billion ETH in rewards — worth over $2 billion as of April 8. 

ETH price undergoes key technical bounce

Many experts see the hard fork as bullish for Ether in the long term. For instance, the Shanghai buzz has helped Ether outperform Bitcoin in April so far.

As a result, the ETH/BTC pair has risen by about 4.75% month-to-date to reach 0.066 BTC as of April 8, a nearly 8% rebound since March 20. 

The bounce was largely expected, particularly as ETH/BTC dropped to its historical ascending trendline support. Now, the upside move raises the prospects of an extended bullish retracement toward its descending trendline resistance, marked as a "sell zone" in the chart below.

Bitcoin (BTC) reduced its narrow trading range even further into April 8 as risk assets waited for fresh catalysts. 

Hopes for BTC price "impulse" to follow sideways action

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD hovering near $28,000 on Bitstamp.

The pair continued sideways behavior into the weekend after the Wall Street trading week offered few surprises.

Despite calls for $25,000 and $30,000 to enter as near-term targets, increasing order book liquidity either side of spot price appeared to offer the market increasingly little room for maneuver.

This liquidity remained in force on the day, with monitoring resource Material Indicators capturing the phenomenon on the Binance order book.

Despite regulatory pressure and worsening macroeconomic conditions, Bitcoin (BTC) demonstrated bullishness holding near $28,000 for the past week. Furthermore, professional traders have maintained leveraged long positions on margin and in futures markets, indicating strength.

On the regulatory front, on April 4, the Texas Senate Committee on Business and Commerce agreed to move forward and remove incentives for miners operating within the state's regulatory environment. If passed, Senate Bill 1751 would set a cap on compensation for load reductions on Texas' power grid during emergencies.

Risk of recession grows against rate hikes 

The risk of a recession grew after applications for U.S. unemployment benefits for the week ending March 25 were revised to 246,000, up 48,000 from the initial report.

Furthermore, Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), stated on April 6 that economies in the U.S. and Europe should continue to struggle as higher interest rates weigh on demand.

Regarding the banking crisis, Georgieva advised central banks to keep raising interest rates, adding, "concerns remain about vulnerabilities that may be hidden, not just at banks but also non-banks — now is not the time for complacency."

Bitcoin (BTC) could rally toward $50,000 in 2023, according to a historical price fractal highlighted by popular market analyst Mags.

Bitcoin price trend in 2015 vs. 2023

The chart fractal highlights the similarities between Bitcoin’s ongoing price trends and those recorded after the completion of the 2013–2015 bear market.

That includes Bitcoin’s consolidation inside the $200–$300 range between January 2015 and August 2015, which appears identical to its consolidation between the $18,500–$25,000 range after the supposed completion of its 2021–2022 bear market.

BTC’s price broke above the $16,000–$25,000 range in March 2023, prompting Mags to highlight its resemblance to the breakout above the $200–$300 range in October 2015.

Since this resulted in a rally toward $700 in June 2016, the analyst sees the scenario potentially repeating in 2023, with BTC’s price doubling to $50,000.

Bitcoin (BTC) showed little interest in moving higher at the April 7 Wall Street open as fresh United States macro data boosted bets on further interest rate hikes.

Analyst: Fed will keep hiking “until something breaks”

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it drifted around $27,900 on Bitstamp.

U.S. nonfarm payrolls figures, the main macro data focus of the week, came in slightly below expectations, indicating unemployment rising more slowly than predicted.

This in turn raised market expectations that the Federal Reserve would persist in raising interest rates to combat inflation — at the expense of crypto and risk asset performance.

The odds of another 25-basis-point rate hike in May topped 70% on the day, according to CME Group’s FedWatch Tool, having previously circled 50%.

XRP (XRP) has risen by an impressive 60% in the first quarter of 2023, helped by rising speculation over Ripple's legal win versus the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and broader bullish sentiment in the cryptocurrency market.

The XRP/USD pair now eyes more gains in the second quarter, primarily due to a classic bullish continuation pattern.

XRP price paints bull pennant

Late March, XRP broke above its multi-month ascending trendline resistance, averting a potential 35% correction. The rebound reached $0.58 on March 29, its highest level since May 2022.

Now, XRP has been consolidating sideways in what appears to be a bull pennant. This bullish continuation pattern forms when the price consolidates inside a symmetrical triangle after undergoing a strong rally.

A bull pennant resolves after the price breaks above its upper trendline while accompanying a rise in trading volumes. The pattern's breakout target is obtained by adding the height of the previous uptrend (flagpole) to the breakout point.

Bitcoin (BTC) stuck to a narrow trading range into April 7 as crypto analysts awaited the week’s main United States macroeconomic data.

$30,000 or $25,000 for Bitcoin?

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView confirmed another day’s ranging around $28,000 for BTC/USD.

The pair had shunned volatility over most of the week, but now faced nonfarm payroll (NFP) numbers as a final potential catalyst for risk assets.

“Expectations are that we’ll be seeing 3.6%, similar to last month. Based on the financial numbers of this week, I’d rather expect 3.7-3.8%,” Michaël van de Poppe, founder and CEO of trading firm Eight, summarized about his expectations.

“Result; $DXY down, $BTC unchanged and indices down/up depending on how far the outlier will be.”