On March 23 bears managed to push the price of Bitcoin (BTC) below the $54,000 support level as various on-chain data suggests that whale wallets have begun slowing down purchases and are transferring the risk to retail investors.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that the downtrend that began on March 22 and continued into Tuesday s the price retested the $54,000 support level for the second time this week.
Data from Coinshares indicates that BTC remains the chosen asset for institutional investors while the sector as a whole continues to see significant growth as $57 billion in assets is currently being managed by institutions.
The uptrend remains intact despite the recent pullback
While inexperienced traders and those new to the cryptocurrency space might view the recent downturn as a sign of a bearish reversal, Cointelegraph Markets analyst Michaël van de Poppe sees the pullback as a bullish development for Bitcoin.
To me, this looks like a healthy correction for #Bitcoin.
— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) March 23, 2021
As long as $49-51K holds, I'm assuming we'll see continuation towards $68K.
Still expecting a massive surge on #altcoins to happen from April onwards. pic.twitter.com/WxaYQZ7IrE
Data from CryptoQuant, an on-chain data provider, shows that a total of 14,600 BTC left Coinbase in the early hours of March 23. Traders typically view BTC outflows as a bullish development since the perception of a supply shortage is a popular bullish narrative among crypto pundits.
While there is no way to confirm that the outflows were the result of whale accumulations, analysis from Whalemap shows that there has been heavy accumulation at the $55,000 level, but the researchers cautioned that should the current support level fail, the next strong support level is found at $47,438.
The analysts at Jarvis Labs took a slightly different viewpoint and suggested that traders look at more than just the general exchange flows to understand BTC's day-to-day movements.
According to Jarvis Labs co-founder Ben Lilly, “it's important to see what wallet is active within the general flows."
Jarvis Labs tracks one wallet which they refer to as "Pablo" and analysis shows that the wallet has historically been tied to bearish price action in Bitcoin price. The last time Pablo moved BTC occurred during the sharp market correction in late February.
More recently, the Jarvis team noted that Pablo began shuffling around 15,000 BTC on March 4, indicating that a potential price dump was ahead. The dump came on March 14 as Bitcoin climbed above $60,000 and looked to make a run for a new all-time high.
Lilly said:
“This behavior formed the final leg of the last short-term bearish trend, which lines up with the upcoming largest options expiry. This is the type of thing that can clear the way for higher highs ahead. We're still bullish on April, and general flows support this."
Select altcoins rally as Bitcoin pulls back
Despite Bitcoin's bearish price action, a handful of altcoins were able rallly to new highs. As reported by Cointelegraph, the 'Coinbase effect' boosted Ankr (ANKR), Curve DAO Token (CRV) and Storj (STORJ) price from 50% to 100% and trading is expected to commence on Coinbase Pro starting on March 25.
Theta (THETA) and Theta Fuel (TFUEL) also continued their relentless climb higher on Tuesday after it was revealed that Sierra Ventures, Heuristic Capital, The VR Fund and GFR Fund had “staked more than $100M in THETA to a collective Enterprise Validator Node.”
Following the announcement, Theta surged 40% to a new all-time high of $14.21 and TFUEL rallied 30% to a new record high of $0.53.
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.69 trillion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 59.8%.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.