Bitcoin whales are responsible for BTC/USD sell-off below $10,000, will they push it back?

Bitcoin (BTC) crashed below $10,000 during early Asian hours and failed to recover above the critical level so far. At the time of writing, BTC/USD is changing hands at $9,835, down 2.65% in recent 24 hours. The first digital coin hit a brick wall on approach to $10,200 and dropped under the pivotal area in a matter of hours. 

Whales woke up and stirred the market

A Twitter service Whale Alert (@whale_alert) has been busy posting data on large transactions. As large investors, also known as whales, play a crucial role in shaping trends and sentiments on the market, the information about they activity may shed some light on what to expect. 

Thus, today someone transferred 15,000 BTC (about $149,508,150) from one wallet to another a few minutes before the price crash. Usually, transactions from and to unknown wallets do not affect the price, but, considering the timing, this might have impacted the trend. 

However the sell-off may turn out to be short-lived as whales continue moving their coins to and fro the whole day.

Recently, Whale Alert reported that 25,000,000 USDT (24,946,788 USD) had been transferred from Tether Treasury to Bitfinex. According to Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardonio, the transaction is related to Omni to Tron chain swap. It means that no new coins were added to the circulating supply.

BTC/USD: technical picture is full of uncertainty

On the intraday charts, BTC/USD dropped below SMA100 1-hour, which now serves as an initial resistance at $9,880. Once it is out of the way, the upside is likely to gain traction with the next focus on critical $10,000 reinforced by SMA50 1-hour. This psychological barrier needs to be taken out as soon as possible to improve the short-term technical picture. The next resistance comes at $10,200.

On the downside, a sustainable move below the intraday low of $9,744 will open up the way to $9,600. This level served as a strong resistance during the previous week. Now it is protected by SMA200 1-hour. 

BTC/USD 1-hour