Summary
- Bitcoin held in the $65,000 range and showed relative strength, while Ether rose to its highest level in about two months.
- Market participants said the next leg higher would require Bitcoin to break above $67,300 and Ether to clear $2,000 resistance.
- Some analysts said Bitcoin could pull back to the $52,000-$58,000 range if buying remains weak, with this week’s Fed rate decision and Big Tech earnings set to serve as a key inflection point.
Forecast Trend Report by Period
Bitcoin held around $65,000 and showed relative strength even as artificial intelligence-related technology stocks weakened. Still, this week’s Federal Reserve rate decision and earnings from major technology companies could determine the market’s next direction.
CoinDesk reported on July 27 that Bitcoin was trading near $65,000, up about 4% from last Friday. Ether also touched its highest level in about two months. Nvidia, by contrast, fell 4.8% on the day, leading declines in AI-related shares, while the Nasdaq was little changed as strength in Apple, Microsoft and Google helped offset the weakness.
“The recent resilience crypto has shown during a volatile stretch for traditional risk assets is encouraging,” Joel Kruger, market strategist at LMAX Group, said. The move supports the argument that digital assets are starting to decouple, at least in part, from traditional risk assets. Kruger said Bitcoin needs to break above $67,300, a ceiling that has capped gains since June, for the next upward phase to come into view. For Ether, he added, $2,000 serves as a similar resistance level.
Tom Lee, chairman of BitMine and co-founder of Fundstrat, viewed Ether’s recent outperformance versus Bitcoin as a bullish signal for the broader crypto market. The ETH-BTC ratio, which measures Ether’s price relative to Bitcoin, climbed to its highest level in three months on July 27.
Not everyone shares that view. Nikolai Sondergaard, a senior research analyst at Nansen, said the market was merely holding in a range without strong buying pressure and was not yet moving toward a breakout. If market conditions do not improve, Bitcoin could pull back to a range of $52,000 to $58,000. About 9,000 Bitcoin left exchanges over the past week, but open interest in Bitcoin futures fell even as prices inched higher. He took that as a sign investors were reducing existing positions rather than opening new longs.
Sondergaard said Nansen would need to see three developments before turning more positive: rising stablecoin inflows to exchanges, continued buying in spot Bitcoin ETFs, and an end to stop-loss selling by long-term holders.
On this week’s calendar are the Fed’s rate decision on July 30, earnings from Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Amazon, the core personal consumption expenditures price index and second-quarter gross domestic product data. Bitcoin and Ether options worth $13 billion to $14 billion are also set to expire at the end of July.
Suehyeon Lee
shlee@bloomingbit.ioI'm reporter Suehyeon Lee, your Web3 Moderator.