Bitcoin fails to hold $40K with traders still hoping for a BTC price relief bounce

BTC price action retreats under $40,000 in a blow to Monday's Bitcoin relief rally.
BTC price action retreats under $40,000 in a blow to Monday's Bitcoin relief rally.

Bitcoin (BTC) pierced $40,000 at the Wall Street open on April 26 as its latest relief rally lasted less than 24 hours.

BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView

$39,500 eyed as BTC safety net

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD dropping from local highs of $40,800 on April 26.

At the time of writing, volatility was in evidence as bulls and bears tussled for $40,000, a level which had been beaten in April 25's uptick.

United States equities contributed to the return of sell-side pressure, with the Nasdaq 100 promptly losing 1.5% on the open and the S&P 500 trading down nearly 1%.

For popular trader Crypto Ed, the odds were on for a trip to $39,500 before another relief bounce took the market higher, potentially towards $42,800.

A similar angle came from fellow analyst and trader Rekt Capital, who spied underlying relative strength index (RSI) support as grounds to expect bullish continuation after a possible dip.

"BTC may be dipping now but the red diagonal on the RSI suggests that this current rally isn't over," he tweeted alongside a chart showing the setup.

"$BTC could dip to as low as the red area but should be able to enjoy trend continuation afterwards upon successful retest."
BTC/USD annotated chart with RSI. Source: Rekt Capital/ Twitter

As Cointelegraph reported, RSI has been responsible for various short-timeframe breakouts on BTC/USD in recent months.

Dogecoin holds Twitter-inspired gains

On altcoins, it was Dogecoin (DOGE) once again leading the pack, with its latest gains propelling it back into the top ten cryptocurrencies by market cap.

Related: Dogecoin price risks 40% correction despite Elon Musk-Twitter euphoria

Famous as his pet cryptoasset, DOGE had profited from Tesla CEO Elon Musk closing a deal to buy Twitter, and DOGE/USD was up 11% in 24 hours at the time of writing.

DOGE/USD 1-hour candle chart (Binance). Source: TradingView

Also performing well was Terra's LUNA token, while largest altcoin Ether (ETH) copied Bitcoin in failing to hold major support, this time at $3,000.

On monthly timeframes, however, ETH/USD was still holding up, Rekt Capital argued, despite the low-timeframe weakness.

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