(Kitco News) - It was another mixed day for the crypto market as the majority of tokens range traded within 3% of yesterday’s prices as there were no major developments to cause a spike in volatility.
The stock market saw its first notable rally of 2023 to close the week higher on Friday after the employment data from December showed a deceleration in wage growth, which investors took as a sign that Federal Reserve official might ease their rate-hiking campaign. At the close of markets in the U.S., the S&P, Dow and Nasdaq all finished well in the green, up 2.28%, 2.13% and 2.56%, respectively.
Data from TradingView shows that an early morning onslaught by Bitcoin (BTC) bears dropped the top crypto to a daily low of $16,650 before bullish reinforcements arrived to bid it to a daily high of $17,031. Since that time its price has entered consolidation near support at $16,900.
The lack of a notable change in the overall outlook was touched on by Kitco senior technical analyst Jim Wyckoff, who said there was “not much new” in his morning Bitcoin update after noting that “Bitcoin-U.S. dollar prices are a bit weaker in early U.S. trading Friday.”
According to Wyckoff, “Price action remains sideways and choppy overall,” suggesting that “Traders are waiting for a spark to ignite more volatile, trending price action.”
Eight Global founder Michaël van de Poppe also noted the return back to support for Bitcoin and indicated that he would be looking for a long if Bitcoin got closer to $17,000.
Following the afternoon spike above $17,000, Poppe posted another tweet saying “done deal” and indicated that he expected its price to move higher in the coming weeks.
Crypto options trader Kaleo likewise sees a positive future for Bitcoin, tweeting that it “Finally looks like BTC is ready to break out of the $16K - $17K base range it’s been stuck in the past several weeks. Initiate the squeeze.”
And a final bit of insight was provided by market analyst Rekt Capital, who posted the following tweet highlighting the average length of time after a market top that it takes for Bitcoin’s price to hit its bottom.
Another mixed day in the altcoin market
The winners and losers in the altcoin market were evenly split in trading on Friday, further highlighting the sideways nature of the cryptocurrency market.
The top performer on the day was Gala (GALA), which climbed 21.06% to a price of $0.0218, followed by a 19.41% gain for Fetch.ai (FET) and a 9.32% increase for the liquid staking provider Lido DAO (LDO).
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $823 billion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 39.6%.