Bitcoin Price Top Forecast: $4,000 is out of the way, what now?

Bitcoin (BTC) managed to claw some ground amid a thick fog of indecision and uncertainty. The first digital coin gained staged a recovery form under $3,900 and settled safely above $4,000 handle, however, further upside momentum is fading away on approach to channel resistance at $4,140. A breakthrough above $4,000 was supposed to create a strong positive impulse and a necessary technical pre-condition for a fast growth towards $4,200, but these forecast have failed to materialize so far. 

What’s going on in the market 

Fundamentally, this week was riddled with scandals, new partnership announcements and more regulatory scrutiny in different jurisdictions.  

A fake trading volumes scandal erupted this week as many cryptocurrency exchanges were accused of falsifying their trading volumes with the aim to get higher ratings on CoinMarketCap. According to Bitwise Asset Management report, about 95% of trading volumes reported by unregulated exchanges are fake and economically pointless.  

While cryptocurrency exchange OKEX admitted the issue, Binance said that such reports were good for the industry as they increase transparency and responsibility of the market participants, Moreover, the head of the exchange offered CoinMarketCap a helping hand in detecting fake data.

On the regulatory front, a P2P cryptocurrency exchange service LocalBitcoins had to change the users verification procedure to comply with the new Finland Act on Virtual Currency Service Providers and an amendment to the Act on Detecting and Preventing Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (“AML law”). Both laws were approved by Finland parliament on March 13. 

Tezos, Cardano and EOS are the growth leaders among top-20 altcoins this week. While the cryptocurrency market has been on recovery mode, these coins demonstrated stellar growth due to various fundamental factors. Tezos continued to outperform the market following a successful vote on the network development. The coin gained 21% in recent seven days and moved to the 19th place in the rating.

Thus Cardano (ADA) gained over 22% on a week-to-week basis as Binance added two ADA trading pairs to the list of instruments. Also, the coin is now supported by Ledger Nano S, one of the most popular hardware wallet. 

EOS growth is based mostly on speculations inspired by Dan Larimer, who promised some exciting developments later this year.

BTC/USD, 1D chart 

The technical picture has improved significantly as BTC/USD managed to break above $4,000. Daily RSI is getting closer to an overbought territory, but it still points upwards, which implies that the bull’s potential is not exhausted.  

Meanwhile, the area above $4,100 is packed with significant technical levels that include the channel resistance at $4,140 and February high at $4,187 among others. It means that the bulls might have a hard time pushing the price towards a critical $4,200. However, once they succeed, the upside momentum is likely to gain traction with the next focus at $5,000. 

On the downside, $4,000 has turned into a support level once again, but $3,900 what really matters on the short-term time frame.  This area served both as a strong resistance and a formidable support, now it coincides with the lower line of the recent upside channel. The way to the South is not going to be easy as well, as bears will face a stiff barrier on approach to $3,850 (DMA50), followed by $3,755 (DMA100).  

The ultimate support is created by SMA200 (weekly) at $3,455. This line in the sand separates us from an extended decline that may signal the continuation of the bearish trend. 

The Forecast Poll of experts worsened since the previous week as both long-term and medium-term expectations are bearish, while short-term forecast is neutral. Both 1-month and 1-quarter price estimations are below $4,000 handle.  

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