Bitcoin sees fresh $25K rejection as pre-Wall Street volatility returns

Bitcoin (BTC) matched six-month highs on Feb. 21 as the latest attempt to flip $25,000 to support failed.

BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView

Bitcoin unsettled before Wall Street open

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting $25,250 on Bitstamp.

A firm rejection on hourly timeframes then saw the pair return below $24,750, maintaining a trading range in place throughout the weekend.

With a Wall Street on Feb. 20, Bitcoin faced three days of “out-of-hours” trading featuring thinner liquidity and more risk of volatile moves up and down.

These, to some extent, came to pass, with efforts to beat the prior week’s highs being short-lived, resulting in liquidations of both long and short traders, data from Coinglass confirms.

BTC liquidations chart. Source: Coinglass

Monitoring resource Material Indicators continued to track the source of flash volatility, coming in the form of whale traders on exchanges attempting to move the market with mass bid and ask liquidity.

Update on the range set by the Notorious B.I.D.#FireCharts shows ask liquidity laddered up to ~$26.5k and it appears liquidity in that range is getting trickled into the active #trading range and replenishing resistance at $25k. Want to see more bids above $24k to retest $25k. pic.twitter.com/RW0MMxCuIl

— Material Indicators (@MI_Algos) February 20, 2023

“2500 BTC in sell orders stacked between $24.8–25.3K on the BTC/USDT pair,” popular trader Daan Crypto Trades continued.

“Could be for three reasons: 1. Actual sell orders. 2. Orders to suppress price to fill orders before pulling them or buying into them later. 3. Orders to walk price down.”BTC/USDT order book data (Binance). Source: Daan Crypto Trades/ Twitter

Fellow trader Crypto Tony was likewise cautious on the potential for resistance to be overcome.

“We are grinding $25,000 once again here, but the question remains do we stay above that resistance zone, or deviate and come back down,” part of a Twitter commentary stated.