At Last, Bitcoin Break $12k; Aims for New YTD High

Bitcoin (BTC) appears to have fully recovered, following yesterday’s break above $11,600. The recent surge occurred in tandem with the opening of the US trading markets for the new week and facilitated an inflow of $6 billion into the crypto space within a few hours.

The sharp rally has caused yet another gap on the CME Bitcoin futures market (GAP 3) between $11,490 and $11,405, which is likely going to exert pressure on the budding uptrend. Below this gap is the second unfilled gap (GAP 2) between $11,360 and $11,170.

Some analysts have asserted that this trend is the beginning of a fresh bull cycle for the benchmark cryptocurrency, considering that it has staved off bears from taking control following recent negative news, including BitMEX’s allegations and OKEx’s withdrawal saga.

Meanwhile, though the altcoin market is strongly correlated to Bitcoin, many altcoins have remained unchanged despite the recent BTC bull run. As a result, the metric used in measuring Bitcoin’s market cap with all altcoins, known as Bitcoin dominance, has grown by about 1% over the last 24 hours. From a weekly perspective, it has grown by about 2%. Bitcoin now dominates 60% of the entire cryptocurrency market.

Key BTC Levels to Watch in the Near-Term

Bitcoin has gone against the odds and has finally broken the $12k mark. At press time, BTC is trading at $11,950, a few dollars below its recent high of $12,060 set a few minutes ago. This is the cryptocurrency’s highest point since September 2.

We expect to see a bullish continuation in the meantime to the $12,100 resistance before we’re faced with the $12,500 YTD high. Subsequently, we could see the $12,800 and $13,000 resistance levels come into contention.

On the flip side, a failure to break the immediate resistance level could send the price on a modest retreat. That said, a retrace below the $11,400 could force BTC to fill the third CME gap. After that, we could see another attempt at the second CME gap by bears. Needless to say that this could be critical for the near-term bullish prospects of the cryptocurrency.

Regardless, an extended bearish move seems highly unlikely at the time.

Total market capital: $367 billion

Bitcoin market capital: $220 billion

Bitcoin dominance: 59.9%.

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