Bitcoin death cross is staring down bulls after a painful retreat

After one of the roughest patches ever for Bitcoin enthusiasts, holders of the largest digital currency are facing an ominous technical price pattern with a name that suggests more pain ahead.

After one of the roughest patches ever for Bitcoin enthusiasts, holders of the largest digital currency are facing an ominous technical price pattern with a name that suggests more pain ahead. 

Known as a death cross, the measure shows up whenever an asset’s average price over the last 50 days drops below that of its 200-day moving average, an indication that its momentum is headed downward. And though it hasn’t occurred yet for Bitcoin, it looks to be on course to hit it later this week, according to Mati Greenspan, founder of Quantum Economics. 

“The chart is pretty clear,” he said.

Bitcoin avoiding forming the death cross for another day, rising 2.6 per cent to around US$42,813 as of 2:44 p.m. in New York. Before Tuesday, it had notched only three up days since the new year started. Ether, the second-largest digital token by market value, also looks to be on track to form a death cross, though it also traded higher to around US$3,233 on Tuesday.   

But when it comes to the death cross, “the history is really mixed -- there’s no surprise given that some of the macro backdrop is affecting price action, but we’ve seen a healthy bounce over the last 24 hours,” Juthica Chou, head of OTC options trading at Kraken, said on Bloomberg’s “QuickTake Stock” broadcast. “And I think the fundamentals are still really strong.”