Bitcoin Pulls Back Sharply After Touching $70K

In keeping with a familiar pattern over the past few months, Bitcoin’s {{BTC}} surge to a significant level was met with a sell-off as it quickly fell more than 3% on Monday morning US hours after breaking above $70,000 for the first time since early June.

At press time, bitcoin was changing hands at $67,800, nearly flat over the past 24 hours. The broader CoinDesk 20 Index was 1.1% higher over the same time frame, supported by significant gains for bitcoin cash {{BCH}}, litecoin {{LTC}} and solana {{SOL}}.

Investors will become familiar with this price pattern in 2024, as it first manifested itself in mid-January when Bitcoin reached a multi-year high of $47,000 just after spot ETFs opened for trading. This upward move reversed within minutes, with Bitcoin falling below $40,000 before resuming its uptrend days later.

Similar price action was seen in early March after Bitcoin surged above $69,000 only to drop below $60,000 a few hours later. Later that month, another record-breaking move above $73,500 was quickly extinguished, and that level has not been questioned since more than four months later.

While the above may be frustrating for leveraged traders and their profits and losses, technicians can notice a pattern as each of these examples show higher highs and higher lows; the kind of “up and to the right” chart that bulls want to see.

Indeed, in early July, bitcoin fell below $54,000 after a German government agency began dumping its holdings of 50,000 tokens seized as part of a criminal case. Yet just days into August, bitcoin is set to close the month with a significant gain from the $63,000 area where it began.

Read more: The Clock Is Up for Bitcoin’s Post-Halving Surge, 100 Days After the Last Quadruple Halving