Bitcoin whales push ‘choreographed’ BTC price as Ether nears $2K

Bitcoin and Ethereum are both attempting to tackle major price boundaries, but suspicions over the cause of the rally remain.

Bitcoin (BTC) headed back toward $29,000 into April 5 as data showed whale orders guiding price action.

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

Analysis: BTC price push still “bear market rally”

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it hit $28,780 on Bitstamp.

The pair continued a rebound from one-week lows under $27,300 seen at the start of the week courtesy of rumors around biggest exchange Binance and its CEO, Changpeng Zhao (known as CZ).

After reclaiming $28,000, Bitcoin saw fresh momentum as Binance order book data showed large-volume “whale” traders buying.

$BTC Binance Spot
Keep an eye on the $28K area, those stacked buy walls will either support market buying here or will be pulled later.

Supply is consistently being filled in these squeezes.

6K BTC bought in past 1H candle pic.twitter.com/Dv7YzggCDu

— Skew Δ (@52kskew) April 5, 2023

This was not all as it seems for bulls, monitoring resource Material Indicators nonetheless warned, as those same traders could be artificially pushing the market higher in order to sell closer to $30,000.

“Likely a choreographed attempt to push the distribution range up in the short term,” part of accompanying commentary stated.

“Personally still treating this as #BearMarketRally until proven otherwise.”

A subsequent print of the order book with liquidity levels showed spot price eating into a dense cloud of asks, potentially stranding latecomers choosing to go long BTC in the belief that upside may continue.

*BTC/USD order book data (Binance). Source: Material Indicators/ Twitter*

Others were more hopeful that $30,000 could see a genuine challenge after being absent from the chart for nearly a year.

Among them was Michaël van de Poppe, founder and CEO of trading firm Eight.

“Bitcoin looks eager to break the crucial barrier at $30K, while altcoins are also waking up,” he told Twitter followers on the day.

“If Bitcoin makes that breakout, we’ll probably see significant breakout across the board on altcoins as confidence comes back in the markets.”

Analytics account IncomeSharks was similarly optimistic when it came to altcoins in particular, opting to swap BTC exposure for alternatives at current prices.

“Been waiting all year for this,” it announced.

“If we can hold this and keep pushing up get ready to not care what Bitcoin does and make multiple X’s on alts. Part of me selling some $BTC at $28,000 is me wanting more exposure to alts.”

*Total crypto market cap annotated chart. Source: IncomeSharks/ Twitter*

The day prior, popular trader Crypto Tony had agreed that liquidity was “moving” away from Bitcoin on short timeframes.

ETH must hold crucial range high

With that, largest altcoin Ether (ETH) looked primed for an attack on $2,000 at the time of writing, having gained nearly 5% in the past 24 hours.

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

Analyzing moves on ETH/USD that’s now at 8-month highs, trading suite Decentrader noted that funding rates had already been hinting at the upside to come.

#Ethereum Funding Rate functioning perfect as a leading indicator for the multiple moves higher. https://t.co/zypZt1kq5M pic.twitter.com/oYadIkIN44

— Decentrader (@decentrader) April 5, 2023

“The goal now is for Ethereum to now stay above the range high at $1,840,” Crypto Tony added in his own ETH/USD analysis.

*ETH/USD annotated chart. Source: Crypto Tony/Twitter*

“If we begin closing back below, the we have a deviation and we know what that means.”

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors’ alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.