Bitcoin Analysis: BTC Forecast, News & Trading Analysis

4th June 2019

Bitcoin has had two straight bearish days in a row. Over Monday and Tuesday, BTC/USD has gone down from $8,745 to $7,970, charting an 8.86% decrease in price. BTC/USD actually fell from $8,475 to $8,110 within a single hour towards the end of Monday! We will be doing a technical analysis of the price chart in different time frames to gain a better understanding of the price movement. However, before we do so, let’s look into some of the hottest news surrounding Bitcoin.

Fundamental Analysis

The stories we are going to be looking into are:

Delphi Digital calls Bitcoin “King of the Assets Class Hill.”

Bitfinex looking into launching Tether on the Lightning Network.

New BIP may reduce transaction bandwidth by 75%.

Bitcoin’s difficulty reaches an all-time high.

Delphi Digital calls Bitcoin “King of the Assets Class Hill”

Seeing Bitcoin’s performance in recent months, analytical firm Delphi Digital has called Bitcoin the “King of the Assets Class Hill.” Recently to other assets which have faced selling pressure, Bitcoin has managed to string together four bullish months in a row. The firm said:

“May’s outperformance has been especially important given the broader weakness across many other asset classes.”

Delphi Digital observed that to avoid substantial volatility risks as a result of the US-China trade war, the investors have turned to bitcoin instead of traditional assets. Regarding this, a Delphi analyst said:

“Contrary to its recent history, bitcoin has remained largely unaffected by the sell-off in risk assets, though expectations for market volatility are trending higher. It is still too early to claim victory yet, but BTC’s uncorrelated nature has so far proved true.”

Noted Bitcoin bull Michael Novogratz, founder and CEO of cryptocurrency merchant bank Galaxy Digital, expects Bitcoin to trend in the $7,000–$10,000 range:

“If I’m wrong on that, I think I’m wrong to the upside, that there’s enough excitement and momentum that it could carry through.”

Bitfinex looking into launching Tether on the Lightning Network

Bitfinex CTO, Paolo Ardoino, told The Block that firm has plans to launch Tether on the Lightning Network sometime this year. To show how serious they are about this, Bitfinex has joined a group of developers and companies called RGB, which is working to put more assets on the Lightning Network.

The lightning network is a layer-2 protocol built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain which enables users to send microtransactions via hash time-lock contracts (HTLCs).

In an email to The Block, Ardoino said:

“I think that is one of the coolest things we could ever being [sic] involved with…We really love LN (I personally do a lot) so we want to make sure we learn and contribute to it with our resources.”

Bitfinex also stated that implementing the Lightning Network could improve the speed of transacting with the coin:

“We are excited to announce the initial discovery and integration discussion with the Lightning Network team for low-cost, instant transactions of Tether currencies on the Lightning Network.”

New BIP may reduce transaction bandwidth by 75%

Well-known Bitcoin Core developers, Dr. Pieter Wuille and Greg Maxwell, along with Gleb Naumenko, a researcher at the University of British Columbia, have drafted a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP), dubbed “Erlay.” The BIP will be looking at lowering the amount of bandwidth required to process bitcoin transactions by approximately 75% after its activation.

As explained by Naumenko in an email sent to CoinDesk:

“The main idea [behind Erlay] is that instead of announcing every transaction to every peer [on the Bitcoin network], announcements are only sent directly over a small number of connections (only eight outgoing ones). Further relay is achieved by periodically running a set reconciliation protocol over every connection between the sets of withheld announcements in both directions.”

Erlay will have the following benefits according to Naumenko:

It will save half of the bandwidth consumed by Bitcoin network nodes.

It will be “increasing connectivity almost for free, and, as a side effect, better withstand timing attacks.”

If the Bitcoin blockchain’s “outbound peer count were increased to 32,” Erlay would be able to “save around 75% overall bandwidth compared to the current protocol.”

Bitcoin network nodes will be able to raise the number of active connection with other nodes.

Bitcoin gets its security from its decentralization. If the nodes do have increased connectivity, it will make the chain even more secure.

Bitcoin’s difficulty reaches an all-time high

It looks like mining on Bitcoin has become even more difficult. The previous peak of 7.454 billion has been overtaken by a new current peak of 7.459 billion. Let’s look at the difficulty chart via Bitinfocharts:

On 14th October 2018, a high of 7.454 billion difficulty was reached. It then went down for a while before it came back up again. As of 31st May, a new high of 7.459 billion was achieved, which the network has maintained for three straight days.

However, even with the increased difficulty, the block time of the Bitcoin blocks have not been affected. Let’s look at the all-time chart of the “Block Time.”

As you can see, it is relatively stable.

This can only mean that the hashrate of the miners have trending according to the difficulty:

After the lows of December 2018, the hashrate of the network has gone back up.

Technical Analysis

For our technical analysis, we will be using Trading View’s charts. We will be looking at the following price charts:

Daily.

Weekly.

Monthly.

4-Hour.

2-Hour.

1-Hour.

BTC/USD daily chart

BTC/USD has had two straight bearish days in a row.

Over Monday and Tuesday, BTC/USD has gone down from $8,745 to $7,970, charting an 8.86% decrease in price.

On Tuesday, the price has gone down from $8,100 to $7,970, breaking through support at $8,065.

On Monday, the price went below the 20-day simple moving average (SMA 20) curve. The price is still trending above the SMA 50, SMA 100, and SMA 200 curves.

The signal line has diverged from the moving average convergence/divergence (MACD) line, showing increasing bearish momentum.

The MACD indicator shows six straight bearish sessions.

BTC/USD weekly chart

The weekly BTC/USD price chart shows that this week has been bearish so far, following five straight bullish weeks.

The relative strength index (RSI) indicator has taken a downward turn and gone from the overbought zone into the neutral zone and is trending around 69.25.

The Elliot oscillator shows seven straight bullish sessions of increasing intensity.

BTC/USD monthly chart

BTC/USD has had four bullish months. June has had a bearish start so far.

Over the month, the price has gone down from $8,600 to $7,970, charting a 7.5% drop in value.

The Elliot oscillator shows two straight bullish sessions of increasing intensity, which is mainly due to the four consecutive bullish months.

BTC/USD 4-hour chart

On Monday, the price was consolidating before it had a drastic bearish breakout which took the price inside the green cloud of the Ichimoku indicator (20/60/120/30).

In the early hours of Tuesday, the 4-hour price chart shows another bearish drop, which took the price from $8,100 to $7,885 as the bulls failed at the $8,100 support line.

Since then, the last three sessions have been trending in an upward channel formation.

Over the last three sessions, the price has gone up from $7,865 to $7,970.

The Elliot oscillator shows seven straight bearish sessions of increasing intensity.

The MACD indicator shows eight straight bearish sessions, which shows that the market momentum is overwhelmingly bearish.

BTC/USD 2-hour chart

During the closing hours of Monday, BTC/USD 2-hour price went down from $8,480 to $8,100, charting a 4.5% decrease in value.

In the early hours of Tuesday, the market had two more bearish sessions as the price went down further to $7,886.

The price then consolidated flag formation, before it had a bullish breakout. The price shot up from $7,900 to $8,000, where it met resistance. The price then went down to $7,970.

The widening of the 20-day Bollinger band shows increasing market volatility.

The SMA 20 curve has become extraordinarily bearish and the SMA 50 and SMA 100 curves were able to cross over it.

The SMA 200 curve is also looking to cross over with the SMA 20 curve, which is an extremely bearish sign.

The RSI indicator is trending around 33.5, having crept back into the neutral zone from the oversold territory

The Elliot oscillator has had 15 straight bearish sessions.

BTC/USD 1-hour chart

BTC/USD went from $8,480 to $7,950 within two hours towards the end of the Monday session and the beginning of the Tuesday session.

The price was trending in a downward channel formation for seven sessions, which followed the pattern of bullish consolidation and bearish breakout.

The three latest sessions have trended in an upward channel formation.

The RSI indicator is trending around 37.85.

The signal line crossed over the MACD line, which resulted in three consecutive bullish sessions.

Future Behaviour

It looks like the bears have full control over the market. Even though the bulls are trying to come back as can be seen in the 1-hour curve, the fact remains that the overall market momentum is highly bearish. The bulls will need to protect the critical support level at $7,615 to make sure that the market doesn’t go any further below.

Bitcoin Analysis Conclusion: June 4, 2019.

27th May 2019

Bitcoin bulls rallied over the weekend and took BTC/USD on the verge of $9,000. From this Saturday to Monday, Bitcoin went up from $7,982.50 to $8,807.50, charting a 10.35% increase in value. The last time Bitcoin traded around this value was a year back on May 2018. So, what dictated this bullish momentum? Let’s analyze.

Fundamental Analysis

The following news stories may have encouraged this bullish momentum:

Bitcoin outperforms the stock market.

Anthony Pompliano: Bitcoin may be entering two or three-year bull market.

China clarifying that holding Bitcoin and P2P OTC trading is legal.

AT&T to accept Bitcoin for bill payments.

Fidelity Investments bullish about Bitcoin.



Bitcoin Outperforms Stock Market

Morgan Creek’s Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano tweeted that Bitcoin’s price went up by 111% in 2019, while stocks have risen by only 12% in the same period. Pomp tweeted:

“Stocks are up 12% in 2019. Bitcoin is up 111% in 2019.#GetOffZero and get in the game. 🔥”

Bitcoin’s 2019 run has been so impressive that eToro’s Mati Greenspan said, “At this point, a $200 move in the price of Bitcoin could easily lead to a move of $2,000.”

So, why has the stock market been so lethargic by comparison? Billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper blames investor fatigue. Draper told CNBC that established brands going public aren’t going to experience massive price growths. Draper feels that they are going to expect a maximum stock value increase between 10% and 20%.



Pomp: Bitcoin entering 2-3 year bull market

The Pomp wasn’t done making headlines. He also claimed that Bitcoin is entering a 2-3 year bull market. He identified the following factors behind this conclusion:

Bitcoin exchanges are seeing all-time high volumes with futures reaching $1.2 billion.

are seeing all-time high volumes with futures reaching $1.2 billion. Retail investors such as Fidelity are moving back into the crypto market.

US-China trade war has helped drive Bitcoin’s value higher, which also shows that BTC can be a safe-haven currency.

Bitcoin‘s rally before its block reward gets halved on May 2020.



China clarifies that Bitcoin holding and P2P OTC trading is legal

Xiao Wei, a Council Member at the Law Research Association of the Bank of China, provided some clarity as to the government’s stance on cryptocurrencies. Wei said that despite the crypto ban, citizens can safely hold Bitcoins.

Similarly, OTC trading is also not considered a crime. As per Wei, this would be an act of “disposition of power” in which one person transfers to another an asset along with the rights associated with it. Wei said:

“How to dispose of it is the private right of the owner, and others have no right to interfere.”



AT&T to accept Bitcoin for bill payments

The U.S. telecom giants, AT&T announced a partnership with BitPay, a crypto payment processor. As part of the partnership, US-based users will be able to pay their mobile bills with Bitcoin.

Kevin McDorman, vice president, AT&T Communications Finance Business Operation, said:

“We’re always looking for ways to improve and expand our services. We have customers who use cryptocurrency, and we are happy we can offer them a way to pay their bills with the method they prefer.”

The reaction to this news has been pretty split. Detractors say that BitPay will convert the Bitcoins to fiat before handing over the money to AT&T. As such, this is not going to help in adoption.

Pompliano and Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao were optimistic about the news.

Pomp:

“AT&T just announced that they will now accept Bitcoin for bill payments. There are only 21 million. Everyone is trying to accumulate Bitcoin”

CZ:

“Not a small company, not a small user base. It’s spreading…”



Fidelity Investments bullish on Bitcoin

One of the world’s largest asset managers and financial institutions, Fidelity Investments, seems to be extremely bullish on Bitcoin. Justin Moon tweeted that Fidelity has a room fill of Bitcoin miners (ASICs):

“BTW Fidelity has a room full of bitcoin miners at their office. Cypherpunk AF!”

Ari Paul, the founder & chief investment officer of BlockTower Capital, also tweeted about Fidelity’s crypto culture:

“Fidelity’s cryptocurrency culture is bonkers. Literally hundreds of passionate advocates at every level of seniority at the firm. They have more people working on crypto than the 5 biggest crypto funds combined.”

Technical Analysis

For our technical analysis, we will be using Trading View’s charts. We will be looking at the following price charts:

Daily.

Weekly.

Monthly.

4-Hour.

2-Hour.

1-Hour.



BTC/USD daily chart

BTC/USD is currently priced at $8,800 and the bulls are looking to breach the $9,000 level.

The price is creeping towards the upper curve of the 20-day Bollinger band.

The Bollinger band’s jaw is narrowing, which shows that the market volatility is decreasing.

The 200-day simple moving average (SMA 200) has finally turned bullish since May 2018.

The relative strength index (RSI) indicator is trending inside the overbought zone at 72.80.

The SMA 100 curve has crossed over the SMA 200 curve, which is a bullish sign.

The closest resistance level is at $8,930.

During Sunday, the bulls managed to break resistance levels at $8,200, $8,385, $8515, and $8,665 in one single day.



BTC/USD weekly chart

The weekly BTC/USD chart has been bullish for five weeks in a row.

The price has had a bullish breakout from the flag formation.

The price is currently trending upwards in a channel formation.

The bulls will need to break past the resistance level at $9,535, which will help them overcome the highs achieved in February 2018.



BTC/USD monthly chart

The month of May has been extremely fruitful for Bitcoin.

Over the month, BTC/USD has gone up from $5,250 to $8,825, charting a 68.1% increase in price.

The month has been so bullish that the Elliot wave oscillator finally had a bullish session following three consecutive bearish sessions.



BTC/USD 4-hour chart

The 4-hour BTC/USD chart is trending above the green Ichimoku cloud (20/60/120/30).

The 4-hour price is currently trending inside a flag formation.

The price is trending above the SMA 20, SMA 50, SMA 100, and SMA 200 curves.

On the upside, the closest resistance level is at $8,825, which the price is currently negotiating with.

In the moving average convergence/divergence (MACD) indicator, the signal line has taken a turn towards the MACD line, indicating lower bullish momentum.



BTC/USD 2-hour chart

As the markets closed on 26th May, the BTC/USD 2-hour price was so bullish that it was trending above the upper curve of the 20-day Bollinger band, suggesting that BTC/USD is over-valued.

In the early hours of 27th May, the bears corrected the price and brought it back inside the Bollinger band.

Currently, the price is trending horizontally.

The signal line is also looking to converge with the MACD line, which shows decreasing bullish momentum.



BTC/USD hourly chart

On 26th May, 7 pm, BTC/USD’s price shot up by 7% going from $8,010 to $8,570 within an hour. After that, the price went up in a channel formation, before it shot up again to $8,890.

After that, the bulls corrected the price to $8,720.

Since then, the bulls and bears have been engaged in a tug of war. The bears try to consolidate the price, while the bulls breakout.

The SMA 20 curve has taken a sharp turn and is now acting as direct market support.

The price is trending above the green cloud of the Ichimoku indicator.

The Elliot oscillator has had 21 straight bullish sessions.

The six latest sessions are of the same intensity, which is reflective of the tug of war between bears and bulls.

Future Behaviour

The bulls are aiming from the $10,000 level. As of now, they need to negotiate the price space between $9,000 – $10,000. The mid-term technical analysis shows that the bears are trying to consolidate the price, so we may be in for a short term correction. However, the overall sentiment remains bullish.

Bitcoin Analysis: Conclusion: May 27, 2019.

23rd May 2019

Bitcoin bears have had a stranglehold on the market for four days in a row. In the process, BTC/USD went down from $8,215 to $7,610, charting a 7.4% decrease in value in the process. Let’s look at the various metrics which may have dictated its price flow. We are going to look into both fundamental and technical analysis.

Bitcoin Fundamental Analysis

The top news stories under the spotlight are:

The 60 Minutes segment on Bitcoin.

Craig Wright’s Bitcoin whitepaper saga.

JP Morgan states that Bitcoin is trading above intrinsic value.

SEC delays VanEck Bitcoin ETF proposal.

CBS 60 Minutes Segment

CBS’s iconic “60 Minutes” show aired a segment on Bitcoin on May 19. There was a lot of skepticism in the community before the episode aired as they felt it would either cause FOMO or FUD. However, the episode received a mostly warm reception as CBS remained neutral on their stance on Bitcoin.

The topics that the segment titled “Bitcoin’s Wild Ride” covered were:

BitInstant founder Charlie Shrem.

Laszlo Hanyecz, the man who infamously bought two pizzas with 10,000 BTC.

Marco Streng, the CEO of Genesis Mining.

Along with that, Neha Narula, the Director of Digital Currency Initiative at MIT Media Lab, answered some questions relating to Bitcoin. Lael Brainard, a member of the U.S. Federal Reserve, also spoke against the concept of Bitcoin.

Craig Wright and the Bitcoin Whitepaper

Craig Wright, the poster child of Bitcoin S.V. and self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto, and the Bitcoin Whitepaper have had a tumultuous couple of days. A press representative of Wright announced on May 21 that the government had accepted Wright as Satoshi. The release said:

“Importantly, the registrations issued by the U.S. Copyright Office recognize Wright as the author – under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto – of both the white paper and code. This is the first government agency recognition of Craig Wright as Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin.”

Bitcoin S.V. soared by nearly 66% following this announcement.

The U.S. Copyright Office then got busy refuting this claim by stating that they don’t recognize anyone for anything. They are just an archive that protects the creators of art and literature.

The Copyright Office wrote in a press release:

“As a general rule, when the Copyright Office receives an application for registration, the claimant certifies as to the truth of the statements made in the submitted materials. The Copyright Office does not investigate the truth of any statement made. In a case in which a work is registered under a pseudonym, the Copyright Office does not investigate whether there is a provable connection between the claimant and the pseudonymous author.”

JP Morgan: Bitcoin trading above intrinsic value

Over the last month, Bitcoin has been negotiating hard at the $8,000 level. Observing this trend, analysts at JP Morgan Bank Chase & Co. claimed that Bitcoin is currently trading above its intrinsic value. The analysts said:

”This divergence between real and intrinsic values ​​brings some echoes of the peak increase at the end of 2017, and at a time when this divergence was largely resolved by a reduction in real prices.”

They added:

“Defining an intrinsic or fair value for any crypto-currency is clearly challenging. In fact, the views vary from some researchers arguing that it has no fundamental value, for others who estimate fair values ​​well above current prices.”

JP Morgan has had a rocky history with cryptocurrencies. Back in 2017, CEO Jamie Dimon called Bitcoin a “fraud.” However, they softened their stance over time and even created a block-based digital currency “JPM Coin” for online payments.

The reaction to this statement by the crypto community has been pretty strong. Anthony Pompliano tweeted:

“JP Morgan is now putting out reports about “Bitcoin’s intrinsic value.” Thought it was worthless and had no value according to Jamie Dimon?? Never listen to what a bank says. Watch what they do.”

SEC delays VanEck Bitcoin ETF proposal

The uneasy dynamics between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and bitcoin-based ETFs (exchange-traded fund) continued as the SEC delayed making a decision on the ETF proposal submitted by VanEck and SolidX. The new deadline for SEC is now on August 19.

The proposal was failed at the end of 2018 and the SEC was initially supposed to announce their verdict on February 27, however, this has been delayed multiple times already. A similar ETF proposal submitted by Bitwise Asset Management has also met the same fate.

Jake Chervinsky, a well-known lawyer in the crypto space, believes that further delay can be expected and he doesn’t think that a favorable decision is probable anyway.

“As expected, the SEC has delayed the VanEck bitcoin ETF proposal. VanEck’s new deadline is August 19. The SEC can & likely will delay one more time for a final deadline of October 18,” he wrote on Twitter.

Andy Bromberg, the co-founder of CoinList, feels that Bitcoin ETF has already become irrelevant. Speaking to Yahoo Finance, he said:

“I’m not sure the bitcoin ETF matters as much anymore. We’re increasingly seeing that retail brokerages are going to offer bitcoin to their clients. Once you see that, once you see this widespread adoption, you don’t necessarily need the ETF anymore.”

Technical Analysis

For our technical analysis, we will be using Trading View’s charts. We will be looking at the following price charts:

Daily.

Weekly.

Monthly.

4-Hour

1-Hour

BTC/USD Daily Chart

BTC/USD went up from $7,625 to $7,800 this Thursday (as of writing).

On May 15, BTC/USD went up to $8,215 where it met massive resistance and went down to $7,255 over three days.

The price then got support from the upward trending line and shot back up to $8,215 where it again met resistance and fell to $7,625, before the market recovered today.

The 20-day Bollinger band’s jaw is gradually narrowing, which indicates lower market volatility.

The price is trending has been trending above the simple moving average (SMA) 200, SMA 100, SMA 50, and SMA 20 curves since April 30. This shows that the overall sentiment has been bullish.

BTC/USD Weekly Chart

As per the weekly chart, BTC/USD has had a bearish week after three consecutive bullish weeks.

This week, the price of BTC/USD fell from $8,206 to $7,800.

Last week, as the price of BTC/USD breached $8,200, the relative strength index (RSI) indicator reached 77.57, the highest ever since December 11, 2017 (on a weekly chart).

Following this week’s dip, the RSI is now trending at 71.75.

BTC/USD Monthly Chart

The Monthly BTC/USD chart shows us that May, so far, has been one of the most bullish months in more than a year.

The chart may be forming a cup and saucer formation (in the rectangle).

The RSI indicator is still in the neutral zone, despite BTC/USD having four consecutive bullish months. This indicates further growth potential.

BTC/USD 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour BTC/USD chart shows three consecutive bullish sessions. It clearly indicates that the bulls are trying to recover the market.

The second last session touched the lower curve of the 20-day Bollinger band and then bounced back up.

The 4-hour chart finds the closest resistance line at $7,885.

The SMA 20 curve also acts as a near-term resistance level which the bulls need to break through.

The moving average convergence divergence (MACD) indicator shows decreasing bearish momentum.

The Elliot Oscillator has had five consecutive bearish sessions, albeit with decreasing intensity.

BTC/USD Hourly Chart

The hourly BTC/USD chart shows us that the bulls are in aggressive control of the market right now.

The price is currently trending in an upwards channel and has rocketed past resistances at $7,725, $7775, and $7,820.

The price is currently trending in the green cloud of the Ichimoku indicator (20/60/120/30) and it also shows that upcoming sentiment also looks bullish.

In the near-term, the bulls need to overcome the critical $7,980 resistance level to test $8,000 again. The market had earlier failed at this level on May 22 and plunged down.

Future Behaviour

The Next Great Bull Run

Misir Mahmudov, believes that we are on the verge of the next great bull run because of institutional involvement. He tweeted:

“The number #1 Finance app in the Appstore says it all. Spend Cash, Buy Bitcoin. This will be the first bull run when the most established financial business lets you buy bitcoin. Buckle up.”

One Year to Block-Reward Halving

The Bitcoin block-reward halving is due on May 22, 2020. Hardware wallet company Trezor tweeted:

“In exactly 365 days we will experience the third bitcoin halving in history. This event marks a 50% decrease of block rewards, lowering the total supply of bitcoins mined from one block to only 6.25 BTC. How will you celebrate this event?”

In preparation for this event, the investors and traders will be looking to better their positions. Massive price movement is expected before this event.

Bitcoin Analysis: Conclusion: May 23, 2019.