Bitcoin Bulls Fight Tooth And Nail To Defend $3,400 Support: A Bounce Upwards In The Offing

• Delayed Bakkt exchange to offer physically-backed Bitcoin futures contracts.
• Bitcoin must defend the $3,400 support in order to avoid retesting January 2019 lows.

The market is back in the red after at least 24-hours of trading in the green. Bitcoin embarked on an upward recovery journey after it formed new 2019 lows on Monday this week at $3,340. The bullish move yesterday saw Bitcoin head for $3,500 but formed a high at $3,472 before starting to trim the gains. At press time, Bitcoin is trading at $3,064 after correcting lower 0.9% according to FXStreet’s cryptocurrencies live rates.

In other between related news, the most anticipated Bakkt exchange that was scheduled to start operations in December 2018 will now be launched sometime “early 2019.” Bakkt is supposed to offer physically backed futures contracts for Bitcoin. However, it is yet to be granted the go-ahead by the United States Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In addition to that, the exchange is preparing for the launch by increasing the number of experts including software developers, managers in charge of security as well as institutional sales managers.

In the meantime, Bitcoin bears seem to be back and are threatening to push BTC/USD below $3,400. The asset has already failed to find support at the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement level with the last swing high of $3,622 and a swing low of $3,340 as well as the bearish trendline. According to the indicators on the 1-hour BTC/USD chart, the slide is likely to continue in the short-term unless a bounce occurs at $3,400. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is on a downward slope and could soon enter the oversold region as the bears increase their grip eager for revenge. The $3,400 has been tested severally and if Bitcoin bulls can defend it, we could see an upward trend resume with a target at the recent highs at $3,472.

BTC/USD 1-hour chart