cryptocurrency

Bitcoin Rally Coming: Crypto Bear Market Ended in Jan 2018, Says Analyst

March 30, 20190

On Friday, economist and global markets analyst Alex Krüger ‏said that the crypto bear market has been over for more than three months and if bitcoin breaks out of the $4,200 resistance level, it will mark the end of the 15-month bear trend.

“The crypto bear market has been over for three months now. BTC breaking above 4200 will mark the end of the bear trend that started in January 2018. Going to miss this big fellow,” Krüger said.

The bitcoin price has remained relatively stable in the $3,400 to $4,000 region in the past 3 months (source: coinmarketcap.com)

Throughout the past three months, the bitcoin price has remained in a relatively tight range between $3,400 to $4,000. For most of the last 90 days, bitcoin has remained at around $3,800, unable to cleanly breach key resistance levels above $4,000.

What is the Basis of the Argument That the Bear Market of Bitcoin Ends at $4,200?

According to Krüger, whether the bear trend of bitcoin which began in early January 2018 could end as the dominant cryptocurrency reaches $4,200 is not up for debate.

Technically, when an asset experiences consecutive lower lows and breaks above previous lows with a higher low movement, it signals the end of the bear trend.

However, the projection of the bitcoin price escaping its 15-month bear trend is conditional in that it still has to break out of the $4,200 resistance level to confirm.

If bitcoin continues to struggle at $4,200 and dips down to the low $3,000 region once again in the near-term, a new trend could form.

The analyst explained:

This is not a call. Not a matter of ageing well or not. A break above $4,200 technically ends the bear trend that started Jan 2018. Facts don’t care about opinions. If strong selling resumes later on, that would represent a different trend.

Similarly, in February, Krüger noted that if bitcoin breaks $4,200, it could move fast to key levels above the $4,000 region. Hence, the $4,200 level has been a key resistance level for months, which bitcoin had a difficult time dealing with.

Bitcoin came close to breaching $4,200 on February 24, rising as high as $4,199. But, as soon as the asset came close to resistance, it dipped quite violently to $3,800, experiencing a sell-off for a straight week thereafter.

In many areas of the cryptocurrency sector including institutionalization, regulation, and merchant adoption, a significant progress has been made by both existing companies and financial institutions that have recently entered the industry.

While it remains unclear whether bitcoin will be able to cleanly break out of the $4,200 level in the weeks to come, the strong performance of alternative cryptocurrencies have been crucial in sustaining the momentum of the crypto market.

In the last 24 hours, most ERC20 tokens and low market cap crypto assets have recorded gains in the range of 4 to 33 percent, with Bibox Token recording a gain of over 32.5 percent against both bitcoin and the U.S. dollar.

Potential Roadblocks

Although the general sentiment around the cryptocurrency market and the short-term price trend of bitcoin is positive, incidents like the hacking attacks suffered by DragonEx last week and Bithumb today could deteriorate the public image of the crypto industry and potentially the confidence of investors.

Most areas of the crypto industry have matured, as ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees suggested on March 29. But, apart from a handful of cryptocurrency exchanges with strong track records in the likes of Kraken, Binance, Coinbase, Gemini, and several others, many trading platforms remain vulnerable to attacks.

It is far-fetching to suggest that minor hacking incidents of exchanges could lead to an overall decline in the confidence of investors but they present potential roadblocks that may lead new investors in the space to become reluctant towards the existing infrastructure in the market.