Bitcoin slides back below $74,000 as breakout to higher levels fails again

The $75,000-$76,000 range has proven to be stiff resistance as bitcoin attempts to claw back this year's losses.

What to know:

• Bitcoin quickly dipped in U.S. morning trade on Thursday.
• Once again, the $75,000-$76,000 proved to be stiff resistance for BTC's recent rally.
• The software sector, which had lagged bitcoin for several weeks, has been surging in recent days even as BTC is about flat.

Bitcoin BTC$73,941.68 quickly pulled back in U.S. morning trade on Thursday, slipping 2% in a matter of minutes after once again failing to push through what's becoming stiff resistance.

The largest cryptocurrency fell to around $73,500 during the U.S. morning session, now lower by more than 1% over the past 24 hours. The move came after the crypto was turned back yet again after rising past $75,000.

Alongside, the breathtaking stock market rally — which yesterday sent the Nasdaq and S&P 500 to record highs — took a pause. A bit more than an hour into the session, both of those indices were lower by about 0.1%.

Crypto-linked stocks also pulled back across the board. Coinbase (COIN), Strategy (MSTR), Robinhood (HOOD) and Circle (CRCL) were all down roughly 2%-3% in morning trading.

Meanwhile, crude oil prices rose about 2%, reclaiming the $90 level, as ongoing geopolitical tensions continued to underpin supply concerns.

The $75,000-$76,000 range is key for bitcoin, as that was the level it traded at prior to the Feb. 5 market crash that took BTC down to $60,000. A rise past that level might suggest a larger move that could bring prices back to around the $90,000 mark at which bitcoin started the year.

Software catching up to bitcoin

Bitcoin and software stocks were moving almost in lockstep prior to the Middle East conflict at the end of February, with a near 1:1 correlation. During this period, bitcoin has been outperforming IGV, the software ETF.

Since the conflict began at the end of February, bitcoin has gained more than 11%, while IGV has risen by roughly 2%, prompting a narrative that bitcoin was beginning to decouple from software equities.
However, over the past five days, IGV is catching up and is up by as much as 11%, while bitcoin has been flat. This suggests that rather than a clean decoupling, software may have simply been lagging bitcoin and is now catching up.
IGV is up 1% on Thursday, while bitcoin is down 1.5%.

More For You

Despite a surge in short positioning, bitcoin has climbed toward $75,000, with past episodes of negative funding rates often aligning with local market bottoms.

What to know:

• Bitcoin funding rates have dropped to their lowest levels since 2023, signalling heavy short positioning even as prices trend higher.
• Despite the current sustained stretch of negative funding throughout March and April, bitcoin has continued to grind higher, climbing from the low to mid $60,000s to around $75,000.
• Historically, deeply...

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