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It’s been a wild week for bitcoin with the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization reaching multiple six-month highs before retreating suddenly late Thursday, but then rallying again.
Bitcoin (BTC) was recently trading over $24,557, up almost 3.1% over the past 24 hours and off a weekly high early Thursday when BTC surpassed $25,000 for the first time since August.
The Thursday drop notwithstanding, bitcoin was still changing hands 13% higher than it was seven days ago. The reasons for its rebound from previous support around $22,000, subsequent decline and then rally have varied. They underscore cryptos’ ongoing sensitivity to macroeconomic conditions and industry-specific events, even if BTC sometimes behaved counterintuitively.
Late Tuesday, investor optimism trumped concerns about a stablecoin crackdown and tepid Consumer Price Index (CPI) to send bitcoin, ether and most other cryptos soaring. In an interview with CoinDesk, Riyad Carey, research analyst at crypto data firm Kaiko, said that bitcoin’s upturn was “a bit of a euphoric rally that regulatory issues have cooled off temporarily.”
Earlier in the week, Darius Tabatabai, co-founder of Vertex Protocol, a London-based decentralized exchange, said said that “we may have the makings of another bull market,”
A day later, markets turned wary and bitcoin dropped more than $1,000 in a few hours amid hawkish remarks by Federal Reserve officials, the announcement of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against disgraced Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon, and a disappointing wholesale prices report suggesting that inflation remained stubbornly resilient.
BTC's “intermediate-term overbought conditions provide a headwind with important resistance around $25,200 nearby, which increases the likelihood of a short-term pullback. Support is near the 200-day MA $20,000,” Katie Stockton, founder of technical analysis-based research firm Fairlead Strategies, wrote to CoinDesk in an email.
Edward Moya, senior market analyst for foreign exchange market maker Oanda, noted in an email Friday that “after Bitcoin tested the $25,000 level and failed to extend higher, many active traders locked in profits. Appetite for risky assets might struggle over the short-term, which could support a Bitcoin consolidation as long as a regulatory crackdown does not take down a key stablecoin or crypto company.”
By Friday afternoon, investors seemed to have shaken off the latest discouraging news to push bitcoin just a few dollars short of $25,000 again. And cryptos continued to outperform equity markets to which they correlated for much of 2022. Ether (ETH), the second largest crypto in market value, has risen more than 12% over the past week.