Bitcoin (BTC) held steady at $39,000 by Wall Street’s close on Monday, with equities taking the opportunity to recover some of their losses.
BTC/USD 1-hour candlestick chart (Bitstamp) Source: TradingView
Bulls need 'miracle' to reclaim $40,600
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that BTC/USD was not volatile at the open on March 14.
BTC/USD rallied from a last-minute pullback to reach a weekly close on Sunday, avoiding a deeper retracement so far.
However, this week is bound to present a number of potential challenges for bulls, starting with Monday’s European vote to ban proof-of-work cryptocurrencies.
However, Wednesday is the main focus when the U.S. Federal Reserve will announce a key rate hike, a rumored 25 basis point hike.
Geopolitical tensions surrounding Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as well as the resurgence of the coronavirus, have also added hurdles.
As a result, traders are not optimistic about the near-term outlook given what the market has to contend with. For Crypto Ed, the 0.618 Fibonacci level around $40,400 will form a local top before a deeper pullback.
Only a "miraculous" recapture of $40,600 would produce a bullish outcome, he said.
Another trader and analyst, Anbessa, meanwhile noted that bulls need to hold the $37,600 mark.
On the real-time order chart, on-chain monitoring resource Materail Indicators further indicated an increase in selling pressure at $40,000 on Monday.
"New BTCUSDT auction liquidity that just popped up appears to be trying to push prices down the auction ladder below. If bids are filled, expect it to be pulled up," the account commented on a chart showing changes in Binance's order book road.
Bloomberg Analyst: Bitcoin Cools Oil
Turning to longer time frames, Bloomberg Intelligence chief strategist Mike McGlone doubled down on his view that Bitcoin will eventually emerge stronger from the current turmoil.
He noted on the day that Bitcoin has protected much of its support against the “ebb” in demand for risky assets.
"One of the best-performing and most volatile assets since the financial crisis -- bitcoin -- has shown relative vigor amid the ebb of risk assets in the first quarter," he said alongside a chart comparing WTI crude oil to BTC , which may herald the maturity of cryptocurrencies in the direction of digital collateral, maturing in the world.”
WTI Crude Oil vs BTC/USD Source: Mike McGlone/Twitter
At the beginning of this week, commodities remained the hottest trend, while oil futures began to cool down.
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