Volatility was on the rise in the crypto market as Tuesday saw a mixed performance for tokens in the top 200, with a majority recording losses, while Bitcoin (BTC) bulls held firm in their support of the top cryptocurrency above $51,000 amid ongoing inflows into the various spot BTC ETFs available to investors in the U.S. 

Stocks fell under pressure at the market open and remained underwater for the remainder of the trading day as investors continued to push back their rate cut expectations. The CME FedWatch Tool now shows that the first cut is expected in June, three months later than the market predicted at the start of 2024. 

At the closing bell, the S&P, Dow, and Nasdaq all finished lower, down 0.60%, 0.17%, and 0.92%, respectively. 

Data provided by TradingView shows that Bitcoin’s price whipsawed during intraday trading on Tuesday, surging to a high of $53,000 near midday only to flash crash 4.2% and hit a low of $50,755 in the afternoon. Bulls have since pushed it back above $52,000, and BTC trades at $52,090 at the time of writing, an increase of 0.50% on the 24-hour chart. 

BTC/USD Chart by TradingView

An uptrend with volatile tendencies

Analysts at CryptoChiefs provided the following chart highlighting that Bitcoin has been in an uptrend since October aside from two weeks in January. 

“We saw a flat bottom green Heikin Ashi crossing up the Weekly EMA50 (orange line),” CryptoChiefs said. “Except for 2 weeks in January, when we had extreme outflows on the Grayscale ETC, we have seen green Heikin Ashi’s every week! A perfect indication of bullish trend continuation.”

They noted that $48,500 marks the 0.618 fib level from the all-time high to bear market lows, and said “The moment we saw acceptance above this we went from bullish to ultra bullish. Until we accept below this, we won’t change our short-term thoughts.”

But that doesn’t mean that traders should go all in, they warned, saying that Bitcoin’s price won’t be “up only” from here as “big corrections can happen in any bull market.” 

“Just look at April to July 2021,” they noted. “Now you see why that Weekly EMA50 became so important. That level gave us support in the bull market correction.”

“Right now, the EMA50 sits at the $35,000 area,” CryptoChiefs said. “If we reach that in the coming weeks, and this is not financial advice, we will be loading up because Bitcoin’s price is going to go higher.” 

“Right now, Bitcoin sits 32% below ATHs with some major zones that need breaking ahead,” they said. “The next key zone Bitcoin needs to flip is $53-$53.4k where a lot of liquidity is currently sitting with a Daily FVG sitting slightly above it.”

MN Trading founder Michaël van de Poppe also sees the uptrend continuing, but he too warned that significant corrections in bull markets do occur, and while they are usually brief, they can be intense and have a way of scaring many crypto traders out of the market. 

The trend remains to be upwards.

This doesn’t mean that we are having an upwards trend in one-go.

Similarly, the ETF inflow isn’t going to push #Bitcoin‘s price to $100K in 2 months.

Corrections do happen and with the current sentiment, they’ll be nasty and short-lived.

— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) February 20, 2024

Double-digit gainers in a sea of red

Four tokens in the top 200 recorded double-digit gains on Tuesday, but the majority of projects recorded losses as traders continued to take profits following the price increases of the past two weeks. 

Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360

JasmyCoin (JSSMY) increased by 43.7% to lead the field, followed by a gain of 41% for Golem (GLM), an increase of 19.3% for iExec RLC (RLC), and a gain of 13.6% for Altlayer (ALT). Core (CORE) recorded the biggest loss, falling 15.4%, while Worldcoin (WLD) declined by 15%, and Pixels (PIXEL) lost 14%. 

The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.98 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 51.7%.