Key on-chain measures provided resistance throughout the first week of March, thus dampening the excitement of Bitcoin traders.
Over the course of the previous week leading up to the beginning of February, Bitcoin (BTC) had been trading at roughly $23,500.
Today, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is facing a retest of the $22,000 level, which would benefit the short sellers.
Bitcoin’s price has been pretty stable over the past few weeks despite the fact that it has struggled to gain traction at the $22K mark over the past several months.
Bitcoin Feeling The Pressure At $22K Level
Bitcoin’s price on Monday fell below a key support level around $22,200. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $22,360, down 4.54% in the last seven days, and with a market cap of $431.7 billion, data from crypto market tracker CoinMarketCap shows.
Source: CoinMarketCap
BTC was down nearly 10% in the last two weeks, and down 4% in the last 30 days, data from Coingecko shows.
Source: Coingecko
Silvergate Concerns Grow
In recent days, Bitcoin has been trading over $22,400, firmly within the narrow range it has occupied since last week, when traders sold off $78 million worth of long bets in the face of worries about Silvergate Capital.
Following the announcement of a 40% decrease in its personnel, the California-based company made a “risk-based” decision to stop its Exchange Network.
Silvergate stated in a filing last week that recent developments, particularly the collapse of the FTX exchange and following regulatory measures, had raised concerns about the bank’s capacity to “remain as a going concern.”
Other companies, like as Coinbase and Paxos, severed relations with the bank in the days that followed.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were relatively unchanged on Monday, hovering below previous levels out of worry that constraints on crypto-focused institutions could have an influence on the markets.
Bitcoin’s price was trading sideways for most of the last week as the market continued to process Silvergate and prepared for what is expected to be encouraging economic news from China this week.
BTC total market cap at $431.6 billion on the daily chart | Chart: TradingView.com
BTC Forecast
Jeff Dorman, chief investment officer at digital asset investment firm Arca, wrote in a Monday newsletter that the stability of the cryptocurrency market in recent days suggests that last week’s price drop may have been the result of a single seller (or small group of sellers) rather than a market-wide panic.
While BTC/USD has been consolidating around $22,200, a break below $22,000 might trigger a more severe correction.
Meanwhile, some analysts continue to forecast that BTC will reach $25,000 in the short term, with on-chain data indicating several causes for price volatility at higher levels.
-Featured image from VICE