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Bitcoin (BTC) starts a new week still in holiday mode with United States financial markets off for Independence Day.

The largest cryptocurrency, stuck below the increasingly daunting $20,000 mark, continues to feel the pressure from the macro environment as talk of lower levels remains omnipresent.

After a quiet weekend, hodlers find themselves stuck in a narrow range while the prospect of a breakout to the upside appears increasingly hard to believe.

As one trader and analyst singles out July 4 as the site of a “wild run to the downside” for crypto markets, the countdown is on for Bitcoin to weather the aftermath of the latest Federal Reserve rate hike.

What else could the coming week have in store? Cointelegraph takes a look at the potential market-moving factors for the days ahead.

The bears are attempting to sink Bitcoin (BTC) below $19,000 to further cement their advantage over the crypto market. Analysts watching Bitcoin’s MVRV-Z Score, a metric which measures how high or low Bitcoin’s price is relative to “fair value,” expect an even deeper fall before the bottom is finally reached.

However, economist, trader and entrepreneur Alex Krueger pointed out that Bitcoin’s volume hit an all-time high in June. Usually, the highest volume in a downtrend is indicative of capitulation and that “creates major bottoms.” If Bitcoin follows the historical pattern of the 2018 bear market, Krueger expects the bottom to form in July.

Due to the tight correlation between Bitcoin and the S&P 500, crypto traders will have to keep a close eye on the performance of the United States equities markets next week, which may be influenced by the release of minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve’s last meeting and the June jobs report.

Could Bitcoin form a higher low and lead the crypto markets toward the path of recovery? Let’s study the charts of the top-5 cryptocurrencies that indicate the possibility of a relief rally in the short term.

BTC/USDT

The long wick on Bitcoin’s July 1 candlestick shows that bears continue to sell on rallies near the 20-day exponential moving average ($21,396). Although bears pulled the price below $19,637, they have not been able to build upon the momentum.

Although non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are most commonly known in the form of digital art, they exist in many other forms and represent much more than just art. 

In the creative industry, NFTs have been used by musicians such as Kings of Leon to release their latest album. In the sports industry, NFTs are created to record the highlights of major sporting events such as the NBA. In the consumer product industry, Nike, Gucci and many others are selling their digital branded products in the form of NFTs. A lot more real-world applications of NFTs are still to be explored and one of them is the digital publishing industry.

The game-changing implications of publishing and promoting books with NFTs have already been discussed extensively by many. For example, the Alliance of Independent Authors are helping indie authors to promote their latest books using NFTs. Other associated items for the fans club such as character cards are also made into NFTs. Tezos Farmation, a project built on Tezos network, even uses the complete text of George Orwell’s Animal Farm book and slices it up into 10,000 pieces to use as titles for the NFTs.

NFTs created from existing books are normally bound to copyrights. However, in the case of Tezos Farmation, the copyright had already expired. The text from the book can be used by any party for free. This triggers a very interesting question - how can NFTs preserve copyrights and royalties for books with expired copyrights?

The NFT application in the publishing industry is so far mostly focused on books that still have royalties and within their copyrights lifespan. But there are authors whose work lives on long past both their mortal existence and that of their copyrights; can NFTs provide their estates a means to extend the life of the book and its royalties?

Bitcoin (BTC) meandered into the weekly close on July 3 after weekend trading produced a brief wick below $18,800.

Bollinger bands signal volatility due

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it stuck to $19,000 rigidly for a third day running.

The pair had gone light on volatility overall at the weekend, but at the time of writing was still on track for the first weekly close below its prior halving cycle’s all-time high since December 2020.

The previous weekend’s action had produced a late surge which saved bulls from a close below $20,000.

Momentum remained weak throughout the following week’s Wall Street trading, however, and traders were unconvinced about the potential for a significant relief bounce.

Bitcoin (BTC) has been moving in the opposite direction of the U.S. dollar since the beginning of 2022 — and now that inverse relationship is more extreme than ever.

Bitcoin and the dollar go in opposite ways

Notably, the weekly correlation coefficient between BTC and the dollar dropped to 0.77 below zero in the week ending July 3, its lowest in seventeen months.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin's correlation with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite reached 0.78 above zero in the same weekly session, data from TradingView shows.

That is primarily because of these markets' year-to-date performances amid the fears of recession, led by the Federal Reserve's benchmark rate hikes to curb rising inflation. Bitcoin, for example, has lost over 60% in 2022, while Nasdaq's returns in the same period stand around minus 29.72%.

On the other hand, the dollar has excelled, with its U.S. dollar index (DXY), a metric that measures its strength against a basket of top foreign currencies, hovering around its January 2003 highs of 105.78.

Bitcoin (BTC) needs to go lower before putting in a macro bottom, one of the market’s most accurate indicators shows.

Data from sources including on-chain analytics firm Glassnode shows Bitcoin’s MVRV-Z Score is almost — but not quite — signaling a price reversal.

MVRV-Z Score inches towards macro bottom

Amid ongoing debate whether if, or when, BTC/USD will go beyond its current macro lows of $17,600, new figures suggest that the market easily has further to fall.

As noted by Filbfilb, co-founder of trading suite Decentrader, the MVRV-Z score is now in its classic green zone, but not yet at the point which has accompanied price bottoms in the past.

MVRV-Z measures how high or low the Bitcoin spot price is relative to what is referred to as its “fair value.”

Bitcoin (BTC) failed to reclaim recent losses into July 2 as traders prepared for stagnant price action to continue.

"Downtrend acceleration" still in force

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView tracked a limp BTC/USD as it chopped around the $19,000 mark into the weekend.

The Wall Street trading week had finished without surprises, with United States equities practically stagnant — providing little impetus for crypto volatility. The U.S. dollar index, or DXY, fresh from a retest of twenty-year highs, ran out of steam to circle 105 points.

Order book data from largest global exchange Binance showed BTC/USD caught between buy and sell liquidity close to spot price, ensuring a lack of volatility until traders maneuvered or added significantly to bids or asks.

Zooming out, the outlook hardly seemed any more optimistic for bulls.

Unus Sed Leo (LEO) has not only survived the crypto market bloodbath in the first half of 2022 but has actually posted major gains, bucking the big crypto crash.

LEO beats crypto kingpin Bitcoin

LEO, a utility token used across the iFinex ecosystem, finished the first half of 2022 against Bitcoin at 32,793 satoshis, up almost 300%.

The token also rallied 55% against the U.S. dollar in the same period, hitting $5.8 for the first time since February 2022. In contrast, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), the top two crypto assets by market cap, fell by over 60% and 70%, respectively.

That has made it the best-performing crypto asset in the top ranks so far into 2022.

What's driving LEO price higher?

The crypto market wiped more than $2 trillion off its valuation in the first half of 2022, led by rate hikes, the collapse of Terra (LUNA) — now officially Terra Classic (LUNC), and systemic insolvency troubles across leading cryptocurrency lending platforms and hedge funds.

Bitcoin (BTC) finished June 2022 just below $20,000 after a last-minute pump saw bulls escape 40% monthly losses.

Analyst: Bitcoin could stay "boring" for months

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD spiking higher into the monthly close, which came in at $19,924 on Bitstamp.

With that, the pair narrowly avoided its first-ever monthly close below a previous halving cycle’s all-time high. On Bitstamp in November 2017, Bitcoin reached approximately $19,770.

The success was at best touch-and-go for a market which nonetheless sealed its worst monthly losses since September 2011, these coming in at around 37.3%. It was also short lived, with BTC/USD diving toward $19,000 at the time of writing on July 1.

“Steadily carving out a cycle bottom here,” Philip Swift, indicator creator and analyst at trading suite Decentrader summarized in part of Twitter comments after the close.

The cryptocurrency market has had a rough go this year and the collapse of multiple projects and funds sparked a contagion effect that has affected just about everyone in the space. 

The dust has yet to settle, but a steady flow of details is allowing investors to piece together a picture that highlights the systemic risks of decentralized finance and poor risk management.

Here’s a look at what several experts are saying about the reasons behind the DeFi crash and their perspectives on what needs to be done for the sector to make a comeback.

Failure to generate sustainable revenue

One of the most frequently cited reasons for DeFi protocols struggling is their inability to generate sustainable income that adds meaningful value to the platform's ecosystem.

In their attempt to attract users, high yields were offered at an unsustainable rate, while there was insufficient inflow to offset payouts and provide underlying value for the platform's native token.

Bitcoin (BTC) drifted further downhill into the June 30 Wall Street open as United States equities opened with a whimper.

U.S. dollar returns to multi-decade highs

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it abandoned $19,000 to hit its lowest in over ten days.

Bulls failed to preserve either $20,000 or $19,000 at the hands of limp U.S. stock market moves, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index down 1.8% and 2.6% respectively at the time of writing.

At the same time, the U.S. dollar once again staged a comeback to fix a trajectory toward twenty-year highs seen this quarter.

The U.S. dollar index (DXY) was above 105.1 on the day, coming within just 0.2 points of its highest levels since 2002.

Bitcoin (BTC) lost 3% in an hour and Ether (ETH) drifted toward $1,000 on June 30 as pessimism took control of crypto markets.

Traders eye "sweep of lows" for BTC

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting $19,224 on Bitstamp during Asian trading, its lowest since June 19.

A lack of momentum on upticks combined with a failure to reclaim critical support at the 200-week moving average set the scene for fresh weakness on Bitcoin. The largest cryptocurrency thus dived to the support area defined a day prior by Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe.

In fresh analysis on the day, meanwhile, traders toyed with the idea of a relief bounce towards $20,000.

“We're looking for a sweep of the lows and a reclaim before we consider longing because this is a very strong downtrend and we first want to see some strength,” trading platform Cryptop told Twitter followers in part of a new update.

Bullish cryptocurrency traders hoping that the market was on a path higher received a dose of reality on June 29 as the price of Bitcoin (BTC) dipped below $20,000 again during intraday trading. 

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the top cryptocurrency fell under pressure in the early trading hours on June 29, with bears managing to drop BTC to a daily low of $19,857 before the price was bid back above the $20,000 mark.

Here’s a look at what several analysts are saying comes next for Bitcoin as it struggles to gain momentum and break free of the current price range.

Prepare for a choppy summer

A word of warning for traders looking to enter the market at these levels was offered by analyst and pseudonymous Twitter user IncomeSharks, who posted the following chart showing one possible path that BTC could take in the months ahead.

IncomeSharks said: