Bitcoin (BTC) heads into the first monthly close of 2024 with a round trip to its yearly starting point — what’s next?
In a key week for United States macroeconomic policy, BTC price action continues to hover around $42,000.
This sets the stage for a new volatility chapter to come — the past month has seen highs of $49,000, which were followed by snap losses of 20%.
Now, Bitcoin bulls are preparing to contend with the Federal Reserve and U.S. political moves in what could yet spark further upheaval for crypto markets.
This is while the dust settles on the launch of the first U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) — a topic of debate in their own right.
Under the hood, meanwhile, Bitcoin network fundamentals are preparing to shake off the impact of the comedown from $49,000 and revert to the upside — difficulty, for example, is forecast to increase by 4% in the coming days.
Cointelegraph looks at the major talking points impacting Bitcoin and crypto market performance into February and beyond.
Bitcoin comes full circle to end January
In contrast to others before it, the weekend produced actionable signals for traders, with BTC/USD hitting $42,800 on Bitstamp, data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows.
BTC/USD 1-hour chart. Source: TradingView
This marked its highest since Jan. 18, and so far, Bitcoin is holding higher into the week’s first Asia trading session.
The latest BTC price action forms part of a relief bounce that entered last week after a reversal at $38,500. This was accompanied by misgivings among traders, some of which remain — Bitcoin, they warn, could easily fetch lower lows in future.
Analyzing the current status quo, however, popular trader Skew saw grounds for cautious optimism on lower timeframes. In a summary on X (formerly Twitter), he flagged the area at $42,000 as the one to watch.
“From this perspective it doesn’t look so bad tbh, however 1H/4H trend establishment will be important confluence with this mid range level,” he wrote, referring to the daily chart.
Skew added that he was looking for positive signs on Bitcoin’s relative strength index (RSI) on…
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