Bitcoin (BTC) remains stuck below $43,000 this week as even institutional buying has little impact on markets.
BTC/USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
Liquidity keeps Bitcoin bulls bound
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView confirms that BTC price action is focused on a narrow range — for the seventh day in a row.
Since dropping 15% in two days last week after the launch of the first United States spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs), Bitcoin has underwhelmed traders.
While so far not delivering further downside, bulls likewise lack the momentum to bring BTC/USD back to even the top of its broader trading range with $48,000 as its ceiling.
Examining which hurdles lie in the way, however, trading resource Material Indicators flagged a key problem: too much liquidity around spot price.
“Liquidity Dampens Volatility,” it told subscribers on X (formerly Twitter) on Jan. 18, repeating a classic mantra.
“That is precisely why BITCOIN has been trading sideways with price pinned between $41.5k – $44k since Saturday.”BTC/USDT order book liquidity data for Binance. Source: Material Indicators/X
Material Indicators presented a heatmap of BTC/USDT order book liquidity on the largest global exchange, Binance, showing a haze of bid support between $42,000 and spot at around $42,500.
“On the weekly view of the binance order book we can see that another $10M+ in BTC bids has moved above $42k, but resistance above $43.5k has been strengthening,” it continued.
Since Bitcoin fell below $44,000, significant seller interest has appeared both there and at $45,000, the heatmap additionally confirmed.
Material Indicators concluded that there were no clear candidates for shaking up the market in the short term.
Analyst: “No wonder” BTC price came off highs
Various other theories for why Bitcoin is not reacting to the ETF launch with snap gains, meanwhile, continue to surface.
Related: Did a $5B Bitcoin whale sale spark the post-ETF BTC price crash?
In his own X post on the day, Philip Swift, creator of statistics resource Look Into Bitcoin, flagged a classic signal on its Value Days Destroyed (VDD) Multiple…
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