Key Takeaways
- Bitcoin fluctuated around $77,500 after a sharp midnight breakout from the $76,700 level.
- The total crypto economy climbed by over $20 billion to reach an aggregate market cap of $2.66 trillion.
- Traders await whether bitcoin will test $77,600 next, following a drop in WTI oil to $97 per barrel.
Bitcoin Volatility Tightens Near $77K Resistance
Bitcoin endured another grueling stretch of range-bound consolidation, routinely failing to cement a definitive breakout above the psychological $77,000 threshold. Even after breaching the resistance mark, it struggled to sustain upward momentum. Market data reveal that bitcoin spent the better part of the session suffocated below $77,000, only testing the level shortly after midnight when a sudden burst of liquidity triggered a rapid $500 spike—propelling the price from just under $76,700 to $77,200 in less than an hour.
From that point on, it rose gradually to $77,555 before a sharp sell-off saw it tumble to $76,900 by 10:15 a.m. EST. The same pattern repeated, driving bitcoin to an intraday high of $77,604 around 11:24 a.m., only for the cryptocurrency to plunge to just above $77,000 an hour later. At the time of writing at 1:26 p.m. EST, bitcoin was trading around $77,500 and appeared poised to test the $77,600 threshold again.
Bitcoin’s price action meant it added a modest 0.5% to its value, which in turn lifted its market capitalization to approximately $1.55 trillion. The marginal gain also trimmed its weekly losses from 4.8% to 2.5%. The rebound helped push the crypto economy’s aggregate market cap to $2.66 trillion, a jump of more than $20 billion from the $2.64 trillion observed 24 hours earlier.
The crypto market’s modest relief rally mirrored a broader rebound across European and U.S. equities, which caught a powerful tailwind from declining oil prices. West Texas Intermediate (WTI), which hovered just under $105 per barrel on Tuesday afternoon, slid to $97 per barrel, while the global benchmark Brent crude plummeted nearly 6% to settle just below $105 per barrel. Some reports attributed the decline to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s explicit call for a negotiated settlement to defuse the escalating U.S.-Iran conflict.
The dip in energy pressures, meanwhile, helped stabilize bond markets after a brutal multi-day sell-off. In the U.S., the 10-year Treasury yield cooled slightly, reducing immediate anxiety that the Federal Reserve would be forced into a hawkish rate hike later this year.
As expected, bitcoin’s flat price performance resulted in liquidations of both long and short leveraged positions totaling no more than $38 million, with shorts accounting for 61% ($21.8 million) of the total. The single largest liquidation on the cryptocurrency was $3.97 million. Overall, the cryptocurrency market saw $184.5 million in leveraged positions wiped out, with liquidated shorts accounting for nearly $105 million of the total.