18th February: BTC/USD Declines below 52,000, ETH/USD Comes Closer to 2,000

BTC/USD

The pair was declining until the afternoon. Between 12:00 and 13:00 UTC, the pair continued trending down and reached 50,900, based on the CEX.IO exchange rate, but bounced off the intraday 51,200 support level formed on 17th February and closed the hour above the open. This let BTC/USD retrace the losses in the next two hours.

BTC/USD had travelled back to 52,300 by 15:00 UTC but was unable to try and test the 52,400 level of resistance and turned straight down once again between 15:00 and 16:00 UTC. The trading pair closed the hour at 51,444 as per the CEX.IO pricing and, bouncing to 52,000 between 16:00 and 17:00 UTC, continued trending sideways under 52,000 for the most part until the end of the trading day. BTC/USD came under some selling pressure in the last two hours and came down from 52,110 to 51,635 at the day’s end.

The lack of sufficient buying sentiment and buying trading volumes was the reason why BTC/USD could not attempt to continue its ascent past 52,400. The sideways price action shows that traders are still expecting the uptrend to continue, while market makers might be using this flat channel to make new liquidity to make a breakthrough past 52,400. The positive news factor could be a quick resolution to this stagnation around 52,000. Therefore, some positive news regarding the Bitcoin market may be enough for BTC/USD to get at 52,400 and make a breakthrough.

Considering the overall bullish sentiment dominating BTC/USD, we believe this sideways price action to be another milestone in keeping BTC/USD on the rising course. Thus, we expect the near BTC/USD target to be at around 54,300.

ETH/USD

ETH/USD opened the trading session 18th February at 1,849 and made substantial upside progress in the first two hours, having broken above 1,900 by 02:00 UTC. In the next two hours, the BTC/USD trading pair came down below 1,900. From 04:00 UTC, BTC/USD continued trending sideways within a very limited price range, staying for the most part between 1,880 and 1,900.

With some upside slippage at the open of the 10:00 hourly candlestick, BTC/USD had risen above 1,920 by 11:00 UTC. Between 11:00 and 12:00 UTC, the trading pair made a downside retracement, trading below 1,900 for several minutes but, having closed the hour at 1,900, continued climbing higher until the end of the day, setting multiple historical highs along the way.

The trading pair reached the day’s maximum between 21:00 and 22:00 UTC, having risen to 1,950, but came all the way down to 1,920 before the day’s close. Still, ETH/USD was able to close the day near the new all-time high with some very considerable upside progress at 1,936.3 as per the CEX.IO exchange rate.

ETH/USD added some 4.83% to its price on 18th February, which is all the more impressive against the backdrop of a negative price day in BTC/USD, which showed -0.94% on the day. Ethereum is apparently largely enjoying the DeFi market growth as most of its protocols use Ethereum smart contracts.

Alongside, CME Ethereum futures trading volumes and open interest are growing consistently, showing the rising demand for Etherum from professional investors. The open interest for CME Ether futures had grown more than twofold from 20 million on 9th February to $62 million on 17th February, according to Glassnode.

This makes $2,000 a very close target for ETH/USD. And we see 2,342 to be the next target for ETH/USD for the second quarter of 2021.

Konstantin Anissimov, Executive Director at CEX.IO