This was a move that surprised crypto investors across the board. Case in point: data from Skew.com, which tracks crypto derivatives, registered that nearly $70 million worth of short positions on BitMEX was entirely liquidated during the move — the highest amount of liquidations in an hour seemingly since the “Black Thursday” crash on March 12th.
It isn’t clear what exactly pushed the cryptocurrency so much higher, but considering that the BitMEX funding rate has been negative for the past few days, this pump may have been a textbook short squeeze.
The S&P 500 also continued to reverse higher on Thursday morning, gaining 1% in the trading session thus far, nearing multi-week highs. With Bitcoin operating with a positive correlation to the S&P 500, according to a report from the Kansas City Federal Reserve, the crypto market is likely benefiting from the rally in equities.
Bitcoin Needs to Hold This Level
According to crypto trader Josh Rager, Bitcoin reaching this level is “major,” noting how the $7,700-7,800 acted as support and resistance for the cryptocurrency on multiple occasions over the past year.
He added that while there is an initial rejection from the aforementioned key horizontal level, a “close above $7,400” would be a higher high for this market, and may thus lead too “bullish continuation.”
$BTC pushed to a major level that held as support/resistance since last year
$7800 tapped with over 11% gains past 24 hours
Not looking to short here, Bitcoin and stocks both look good, a daily close above $7400 would be higher high and likely bullish continuation pic.twitter.com/jw2t46s8v3
— Josh Rager 
(@Josh_Rager) April 23, 2020
The call for bullish continuation has been echoed by trader Nunya Bizniz, who noted that Bitcoin’s chart from the February highs of $10,500 to now has formed a “classic BARR” bottom, marked by the textbook phases normally seen with this formation.
Per the trader, the textbook formation — technician Thomas Bulkowski’s “best performer” out of 56 chart patterns — suggests Bitcoin will trade as high as $10,000 by the start of May, just prior to the block reward halving.
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