Bitcoin 'Santa rally' pauses at $51.5K as funds bet on a sub-$60K BTC price for January 2022

Published at: Dec. 24, 2021

Bitcoin (BTC) lost momentum at $51,500 on Dec. 24 as traders weighed the odds of a "Santa rally" coming true for Christmas. 

BTC sees potent long-term retest

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView saw BTC/USD preserve its gains from Thursday, these totalling 6% with resistance most recently kicking in at just above $51,500.

Opinions were mixed among weary traders about the strength of the rally and whether it could endure for long.

Still in its familiar range despite the overnight uptick, Bitcoin needed to show its muscle on longer timeframes, Cointelegraph reported analysis as saying earlier.

For filbfilb, co-founder of trading platform Decentrader, a combination of low funding rates and top traders turning long at the expense of more bearish retail among other triggers served as reason to be more hopeful.

Bitcoin; Diag BreakoutTop traders long, normies fading the move up OI up 2.86 bn / 40% Funding low Sitting right below 10x liquidations Happy Christmas. pic.twitter.com/LvRSAN8iTN

— filbfilb (@filbfilb) December 24, 2021

Trader analyst Rekt Capital meanwhile noted that the reversal currently meant that Bitcoin had "successfully retested" the top of a falling wedge structure in place for much of 2021. BTC/USD had originally broken out of the wedge at the end of September.

#BTC has successfully retested the top of the macro Flagging Structure as support$BTC #Crypto #Bitcoin https://t.co/oWwwzblc90 pic.twitter.com/brm5rVDyfd

— Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) December 24, 2021

Data from the research arm of derivatives exchange Deribit added that funds were getting more bullish about a Bitcoin price in the mid-$50,000s in January.

"Additional funds jumping into the NewYear play," the firm tweeted Friday.

"This time, refocus on BTC, as one large Fund buys a strip of Jan14 52-56k Calls x1200 around 49.5k spot, just before spike >50k."

At press time, BTC/USD stood at just under $51,000.

$4,000 ETH returns

Bitcoin managed to post stronger daily gains than Ether (ETH) on the day as the largest altcoin nonetheless returned above $4,000.

Related: Bitcoin needs to clear $51K to reduce the chance of new sell-off from BTC whales

The top ten cryptocurrencies by market cap were firmly in the green, led by ongoing success for Terra's LUNA token.

The exception was a flat XRP, which had nonetheless staged its own rally earlier in the week.

"And just like that, people want to buy altcoins again," Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe summarized.

Tags
Bitcoin
Bitcoin Price
Markets
Ethereum
Altcoin
Ether Price
Terra
Related Posts
Price analysis 1/31: BTC, ETH, BNB, ADA, SOL, XRP, LUNA, DOGE, DOT, AVAX
Bitcoin (BTC) started the 2022 on a losing note, dropping about 20% to its worst performance in January since 2018 when the price plunged 26.61%, according to on-chain analytics resource Coinglass. Now, all eyes turn to February, which has historically favored the bulls. The only two negative closes in February were in 2020 and 2014. One positive sign during the recent price decline has been that the long-term hodlers have not panicked. Glassnode data shows that the number of coins that last moved between five and seven years ago surged to a new all-time high. El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele …
Bitcoin / Jan. 31, 2022
Price analysis 2/16: BTC, ETH, BNB, XRP, ADA, SOL, AVAX, LUNA, DOGE, DOT
Bitcoin (BTC) and the US equity markets are facing selling on Feb. 16 as traders seem to be trimming positions in assets perceived to be risky on the accusation by NATO that Russia continues to build troops near the Ukrainian border. This is contrary to claims by Moscow that Russian troops are returning to their permanent deployments after completion of the exercise. This geopolitical uncertainty could result in increased volatility in the near term. However, the longer-term fundamentals continue to strengthen. PwC Luxembourg, in a recent report, said that 61% of 123 Luxembourg-based financial players have either started or plan …
Bitcoin / Feb. 16, 2022
Price analysis 3/25: BTC, ETH, BNB, XRP, ADA, LUNA, SOL, AVAX, DOT, DOGE
This week Bitcoin (BTC) and select altcoins broke above their immediate resistance levels and moved higher, which propelled the total crypto market capitalization above $2 trillion on March 24. One of the triggers that could have driven crypto prices higher was BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s letter to shareholders where he said that the Russia-Ukraine conflict has opened up avenues for digital currencies to be used as a mode of settlement for international transactions. Another bit of news that may have aided the up-move in crypto prices was that Goldman Sachs redesigned its website with emphasis on the growth of digital …
Bitcoin / March 25, 2022
Price analysis 4/20: BTC, ETH, BNB, XRP, SOL, ADA, LUNA, AVAX, DOGE, DOT
The U.S. dollar currency index (DXY) turned down sharply after rising above 101 on April 20 but this weakness in the dollar has not helped Bitcoin (BTC), possibly because the S&P 500 is struggling to build upon its strong rally on April 19. This indicates that Bitcoin remains tightly correlated with the U.S. equity markets. Irrespective of the lackluster price action, research projects several positives for Bitcoin this year. A report by Insider Intelligence shows that the number of adult crypto users in the U.S. could surge from 28.3 million in 2021 to 33.7 million in 2022. Along with the …
Bitcoin / April 20, 2022
Price analysis 4/27: BTC, ETH, BNB, XRP, SOL, LUNA, ADA, AVAX, DOGE, DOT
The U.S. dollar index (DXY) has risen above the highs created in March 2020 and may next challenge the multi-year highs set in January 2017. Bitcoin’s (BTC) price action is generally inversely connected to DXY. Therefore, unless the dollar reverses its sharp uptrend, a strong recovery in Bitcoin may be difficult. Although Bitcoin has not confirmed a bottom, institutional investors seem to have started their purchases at lower levels. Canada’s Purpose Bitcoin exchange-traded fund added 1,132 BTC to its holdings, according to data analytics platform Coinglass. Behavior analytics resource Santiment also suggested that the crowd’s interest in buying the dip …
Bitcoin / April 27, 2022