Blockchain
Bitcoin (BTC) fails to hold $63,000 and may remain range-bound
Bitcoin (BTC) rose during the European morning on Monday, reaching a peak of around $63,200, before retreating below $62,800. BTC may try to break above $64,000 again, of which there have been numerous instances this month, but all of them have sold off. This behavior, along with collapse in transaction numbers, points towards market consolidation and the possibility of Bitcoin being range-bound for now. At the time of writing, bitcoin is up 2.34% over the past 24 hours at $62,543. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), which measures the broader digital market, gained 1.1%, with stocks like ETH and SOL showing more modest gains, trading just below $3,000 and $150, respectively.
Bitcoin’s price action since hitting new all-time highs in March has been characterized by lower lows and lower highs as a shift towards selling took hold on the market thanks to the profits of both long-term and short-term holders. “A failure below $60,000 could trigger some sort of panic sell-off,” FxPro trader Alex Kuptsikevich said in a note to CoinDesk. “The positive scenario, in our opinion, will become the main one with a rise above $65,000, setting the price at the 50-day moving average and the reversal area in early May.” He added that the downward pressure is likely related to asset sell-offs by miners and concerns about tighter regulation of cryptocurrencies.
Japanese investment and consultancy company Metaplanet has adopted Bitcoin as a reserve asset to protect themselves from the country’s debt burden and the volatility of the yen. Metaplanet has acquired 117.7 BTC ($7.35 million) since April, mimicking MicroStrategy’s strategy in the US. Japan’s gross debt-to-GDP ratio currently exceeds 254%, the highest in the advanced world, according to data tracked by the IMF. For comparison, the US debt-to-GDP ratio has exceeded 123%. The yen has depreciated 50% against the US dollar since the start of 2021. “As the yen continues to weaken, Bitcoin offers a non-sovereign store of value that must, and could, continue to appreciate against traditional fiat currencies,” Metaplanet said.