Bitcoin is trading above $22 000 on Tuesday as it continues a week-long rally ahead of the US inflation data and a highly anticipated Ethereum network upgrade.
After falling below $19 000 on Wednesday to its lowest level since June, Bitcoin has rallied around 20%.
Bitcoin’s advance is also related to winning last week for US stocks. Bitcoin has been closely correlated to equity markets, particularly the Nasdaq (US100), and often follows the tech-heavy index.
Crypto investors are looking ahead to the August consumer price index report, scheduled to be released Tuesday. They want to see the direction inflation is going, which could give hints about the Fed’s future monetary policy decisions.
Meanwhile, the Ethereum network will complete a long-awaited upgrade called the Merge on September 15. The upgrade will transform the Ethereum blockchain from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake model. The update should significantly reduce the amount of energy required for the network to operate, decrease fees, and increase scalability.
Why should we concern?
First, “ETH merge” Google requests are on the rise. At the same time, “buy ETH” requests are at their two-year lows, which is quite a negative factor ahead of the vast update. The community either doesn’t believe in the success, or they are following the “buy the rumors – sell the news” rule and waiting for the massive dump after the merge.
The second negative factor comes from history. Few people remember, but a similar event occurred in the bear market of November 2018, after which Bitcoin fell from $6000 to $3000. Back then, Bitcoin Cash split into Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV networks.
Nowadays, Ethereum is the most popular blockchain among developers. Therefore, ETH might drop if any issues appear during the merge, and many other projects built on the Ethereum blockchain might follow it. This dump may cause a wave of liquidations, and the whole market may crash.
However, we believe it isn’t what will happen, and a possible plunge will be just a correction ahead of the huge crypto market rally.
The crypto market always shows a great reaction to the US CPI release. If today’s data is lower than expected -0.1%, the crypto market could take a breath of fresh air and increase. On the other hand, higher-than-expected CPI might return Bitcoin to under $20 000.Technical analysis
BTCUSD, Daily chart
BTCUSD is trading close to the global descending trendline. If today’s CPI is lower than expected, the price might break above this resistance and keep moving towards $25 300 and the main target of $28 000.
However, if today’s CPI is higher than expected, BTCUSD might return to $19 000, and in this case, with a high probability, a breakdown of this level is possible and a further decline towards $12 000 after the Merge.
ETHUSD, Daily
Ethereum is also trading close to the global descending trend line. If the price breaks above $2000, you might buy ETHUSD with the target at $2500.
In the pessimistic scenario, the price will bounce off the global descending trendline and decline to the $800 – $1000 support range.
