Bitcoin Waves After Crossing $45,000

Stocks rose there with the Shanghai index (SHCOMP) adding 0.65% while Nasdaq has gained 1%.

Bitcoin fell however to $43,000 after jumping to $45,500 with it currently looking potentially like a very nice cup and handle.

Bitcoin cup and handle, Feb 2022

A cup and handle is a very bullish formation where you have the bear racing down on the left, a new floor reached suggesting bears are done, and then a bull mini-run to see if there are any bears out there.

That forms the cup, with the bears showing up in a last ditch attempt forming the handle. Presuming it is a handle, that indicates bears are very weak now, and so you get a proper bull run to certainly $50,000, but maybe even $80,000.

That’s obviously if it plays out with ethereum also rising to $3,230 to now dip at $3,050.

There isn’t any news related event we can easily point to for the dip. Maybe insider trading for the 94,000 bitcoin seized from the Bitfinex hackers, but in that case we’d call it more insider ignorance because that is very good news as the thieves will no longer be able to drip drip sell the coins which will obviously now go to Bitfinex that tends to hodl with it unclear just what distribution process there will be to the actual owners of these coins, the Bitfinex customers.

One thing is pretty clear however, close to 100,000 bitcoins have been taken out of circulation for at least some months, if not longer, and thus technically some $3 billion of practically new demand has come to market.

Another interpretation may well be that the dip was less due to any news, and more just due to sentiment or technical analysis as $45,000 is clearly resistance.

That may explain bitcoin’s lack of reaction to a green day in stocks, although it’s not very clear whether there may be a decoupling going on.

Not least now just days ahead of the Super Bowl when Matt Damon will tell the nation about crypto fortune favoring the brave this Sunday.

Coinbase and FTX will show ads during the Super Bowl as well with FTX’s founder Sam Bankman-Fried stating:

“It’s a way to get our name out there. In terms of venues to do that, it’s hard to find a higher-profile one than this.”

Tezos, the crypto blockchain valued at $3.7 billion, is taking a potentially more permanent approach in sponsoring Manchester United, the top premier league English football club that courts tens of millions of fans across the world, though this paper prefers Liverpool (jk).

So crypto is going mainstream, though they smaller than Apple all combined and they’re very far from mainstream in usage with second layers still in development or at the very early phases of adoption, which means the western middle class is still largely priced out beyond buy and hodl.

That will change, first slowly then quickly, with it unclear whether first we’ll get a quiet period in between or a no hangover, just keep on quiet partying.