Bitcoin breakout 'imminent' says hedge fund as analyst targets $48K monthly close

A fresh Bitcoin (BTC) breakout is "imminent" and most likely to the upside, hedge fund Vailshire Capital Management says.

In a tweet on Jan. 19, Jeff Ross, the firm's founder and CEO, described the outlook for BTC performance as "wildly bullish."

Vailshire Capital 'steadfastly long' BTC

Using a combination of on-chain metrics and macro insight, Ross highlighted an upcoming end to the ranging and conolidation seen in the Bitcoin price this week. 

"Update on #Bitcoin technicals... Breakout imminent. Direction still undecided. Macroview: Wildly bullish. On-chain analysis: Wildly bullish," he wrote.

"Upside move most likely. Short-term dips will be bought with strength. Vailshire Partners LP remains steadfastly long."

His comments come as Bitcoin sentiment appears to return to "business as usual" after the holiday break, with asset management giant Grayscale making its biggest one-day BTC buy ever — around $700 million as of Tuesday.

As Cointelegraph reported, both network difficulty and hash rate have hit new all-time highs, and expectations are mounting that price will rise to follow suit. Ether (ETH), the largest cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin, beat its record highs from 2018 on the day.

PlanB: All eyes on monthly close

Vailshire meanwhile is not alone in its optimism over Bitcoin's prospects this week. In the latest update to his stock-to-flow Bitcoin price model, quant analyst PlanB eyed the possibility of BTC/USD soon passing the "point of no return."

This, he explains, would occur should January's monthly close be substantially higher than the current spot rate — around $48,000, for example.

In so doing, Bitcoin would cement its status within stock-to-flow's theories, including its transition to an asset with a market cap of up to $29 trillion, as dictated by PlanB's stock-to-flow cross-asset model (S2FX).

"A larger monthly jump to #bitcoin $48K would create a nice gap between monthly dots. These gaps usually mark the point of no return (red arrows), i.c. the phase transition to #phase5," he commented while uploading the chart to Twitter.

Not everyone was convinced. In an update on Tuesday, Cointelegraph Markets analyst filbfilb warned that the next few days would be critical if Bitcoin is to avoid bearish pressure.

The reason, he said, came from repeated warning signals delivered by his Predator trading tool. 

"Predator printed its second yellow candle in the Bitcoin run-up," he explained.

"Last one it could be ignored as the following candle was green. Three days to resolve it or it may mean a more lengthy chopsolidation/retrace IMO."