Bitcoin (BTC) may be attempting to flip $30,000 to support on May 19, but for one group of analysts, attention is focused firmly on a fresh drop.
In a tweet on the day, on-chain monitoring resource Whalemap defined the support levels Bitcoin bulls must defend to avoid fresh significant losses.
Bitcoin's current "no man's land" price behavior has commentators split on whether the next decisive move will be up or down.
While some are calling for $32,000 or more next, many argue that last week's trip to $23,800 was not the lowest that BTC/USD will manage going forward.
For Whalemap, which analyzes the buying and selling of Bitcoin's biggest investors, the zone to watch is around $24,000 to $26,000.
This is where larger groups of whales deployed funds, and their presence thus provides considerable on-chain support.
Should sell pressure unravel the zone, the results could be a "much deeper" retracement, Whalemap analysts warn, describing the whale support levels as "do or die."
In a separate post, however, Whalemap noted that with realized losses now dwarfing gains, Bitcoin could yet be in for a price turnaround.
"Two times more losses than profits were transacted on-chain in the last couple of days," it commented on May 18.
"Last times this happened $BTC had a rally up. Lets see what happens this time."
Previously, Cointelegraph reported on mounting overall Bitcoin realized losses, these reaching their second-highest daily levels ever last week.
At the time of writing, BTC/USD traded at around $29,400 amid an attempt to crack 24-hour highs.
Related: Price analysis 5/18: BTC, ETH, BNB, XRP, ADA, SOL, DOGE, DOT, AVAX, SHIB
The Wall Street open was primed to unsettle the market once again, however, following the May 18 session, which saw considerable sell-side pressure across equities t then spilled over into crypto.
Given that last week's ten-month lows coincided with Bitcoin's overall on-chain realized price, meanwhile, interest remains strong as to whether this fact, in and of itself, will be enough to prevent the market from a new level of capitulation.
"It remains to be seen if a full return to the Realized Price is required to put this bear market to rest, and if so, whether it is for months, weeks, days or just a short a moment," on-chain analytics firm Glassnode concluded in the latest edition of its weekly newsletter, "The Week On-Chain," released on May 16.
"Perhaps those days are behind us if the accumulation we observed is indicative of the support the bulls are willing to put up in the $20ks range. Note also, there remains a plethora of macro, inflationary and monetary policy forces acting as headwinds. The road ahead will likely continue to be a rocky one."
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
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