Bitcoin (BTC) enters the last full week of July on shaky ground as $30,000 becomes resistance.
In what promises to be an exciting – but possibly nerve-wracking – week for traders, BTC price action is staring at a combination of volatility triggers.
Chief among these is the United States Federal Reserve’s decision on interest rates, which headlines an important amount of macro data releases.
Some hope that alone will be enough to shake Bitcoin out of its monthly trading range, in which it has barely moved above the $30,000 mark. So far, the market has offered few clues as to where it could go next.
This means that traders are impatient and increasingly believe that BTC/USD will eventually break from current levels and head towards $25,000 or even lower.
Cointelegaph takes a look at the main factors in the BTC price debate as July draws to a close.
BTC prices start bearish start of week at $29,000
Bitcoin delivered classic volatility to the weekly close on July 23, giving bulls a glimmer of $30,000 support to potentially return.
However, this was short-lived and with hours to go before the weekly candle closes, BTC/USD retraces its last-minute gains to end the week at almost exactly $30,000.
Overnight, price action continued to weaken, and at the time of writing, Bitcoin was heading towards $29,000 on data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView.
Overall, however, this all-too-familiar streak continues to persist.
As the weekend drew to a close, Michaël van de Poppe, founder and CEO of trading firm Eight, highlighted what he called a “crucial area” for the bulls to break through.
“The key level has not been broken for Bitcoin, so we will continue to chop sideways,” he said he continued on that day.
“The scenarios remain the same; – Longs above $30,200-30,400 – Longs when we get to $29,000.”
Popular trader Daan Crypto Trades noted that the rise to $30,300 actually opened and already closed a CME futures gap.
“Don’t fall for weekend deviations,” he said he said Twitter followers.

A cautiously optimistic view of last month’s range came from fellow trader Credible Crypto, who suggested that Bitcoin could avoid more significant losses.
“Over the past 30 days, the price has been in a narrow range and the OI aggregate has oscillated between 2 key levels,” he said in summary.
“Price range, OI builds up, then we see an up/down flush that resets OI before the cycle repeats. If this continues, the decline should be kept to a minimum here.”

Fed rate hike decision leads to ‘week of action’
One event is dominating the macro landscape this week, and not just in cryptocurrencies.
The Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will meet on July 26 to decide how much – if at all – to raise benchmark interest rates.
Markets are in no doubt that a hike is coming – unlike last month, Fed officials were virtually unanimous in predicting a 0.25% hike.
This follows from CME Group’s latest data FedWatch toolthe probability of this happening is currently 99.8%.

Weekly macro data will not be released until after the FOMC, leaving no room for them to influence decisions in time. However, the news releases are no less important and include Q2 GDP as well as the Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) index print.
“Nothing like an action-packed week in the markets. 20% of S&P 500 Companies Report Earnings with Fed Meeting and Inflation Data to Back It Up,” financial commentary source The Kobeissi Letter he wrote in the summary section on Twitter.
“After a few weeks of low volatility, it should be interesting this week. It’s a great week to be a businessman.’
This week’s key events:
1. Consumer confidence data – Tuesday
2. New data on home sales – Wednesday
3. Fed Interest Rate Decision – Wednesday
4. GDP data Q2 2023 – Thursday
5. PCE Inflation Data – Friday
6. ~20% of S&P 500 companies report profits
An action-packed week ago.
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) July 23, 2023
Fellow financial commentator Tedtalksmacro noted that overall global central bank liquidity conditions appeared to be at macro lows despite a possible upcoming hike.
“After freefalling since March, global CB liquidity may have bottomed here,” he said he commented next to the comparison charts.
“Historically, it has been good for BTC + risk.

Basics due to drop in Hash Ribbons “surrender”.
Bitcoin’s stubborn trading scale is once again taking its toll on the network’s foundations as heated competition among miners cools.
According to the latest estimates from BTC.combitcoin mining difficulty will decrease by about 4% at the next automatic reset on July 26th.
Currently at all-time highsThe difficulty has only seen a few drops this year, and this week could be the biggest so far in 2023.

Hash rate tells a similar story of consolidation after reaching its own all-time highs this month. Analyzing the Hash Ribbons metric, Charles Edwards, founder of cryptocurrency manager Capriole Investments, marked the new phase of “capitulation.”
While the market has been missing since late 2022, when Bitcoin was still suffering from the effects of the FTX collapse, the capitulation is nothing traders should fear, Edwards argued.
Despite this, he called the explosive growth of the hash rate over the past seven months “unsustainable”.
“We have the surrender of the Hash Ribbon. AKA Bitcoin Hash Rate Slowdown After Incredible (Unsustainable) 50% Increase in 2023,” he commented last week.
“HR capitulation is not a sell signal, but it is not bullish either. Risk management is guaranteed until growth resumes.”

Cointelegraph continues to extensively cover the status quo among miners and various theories are emerging recent BTC selling behavior.
NVT is the highest since 2019
Like bitcoin it will mine its 800,000 blockthe classic on-chain metric gives a similar signal that – at least for now – BTC price conditions may be overheated.
The Network Value to Transaction (NVT) ratio, which divides Bitcoin’s market capitalization by the US dollar value of daily transactions on the chain, has hit four-year highs.
NVT tries to indicate when a bundle in the chain is out of sync with the overall value of the network, but its consequences can vary.
As its creator, analyst Willy Woo, explained, NVT peaks can occur both in bull markets and during periods of “unsustainable” price growth.
“When Bitcoin’s NVT value is high, it means that the valuation of its network exceeds the value carried in its payment network, this can happen when the network is in high growth and investors value it as a high-return investment, or alternatively, when the price is in an unsustainable bubble,” he wrote in a report. accompanying introduction per metric on your Woobull analytics site.

In his latest interview with Cointelegraph, meanwhile, Capriole’s Edwards argued that NVT is still in check against the extreme highs seen in 2021.
“NVT is currently trading at a normal level,” he said, adding that “given today’s normalized reading, it doesn’t tell us much; just that bitcoin is only fairly valued by that metric.”
Long-term holders control 75% of the BTC supply
Is silver in the making? The available supply of Bitcoin continues to dwindle behind the scenes.
Related: Bitcoin may still hit $19k, trader warns of ‘big move’ in BTC price
As various market participants have noted, the amount of BTC being offered for purchase shows a persistent belief among its most ardent enthusiasts.
55% of the supply now remains idle at least two yearsand 29% for five years or morereports data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode.
“Bitcoin Long-Term Holder Supply Hits New ATH of 14.52 Million BTC, Equivalent to 75% of Circulating Supply,” Further Analysis highlighted this week.
“This suggests that HODLing is the preferred market dynamic among mature investors.”
The accompanying chart showed the amount of BTC in the hands of so-called long-term holders, or LTHs, defined as entities that hold coins for 155 days or more.

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This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading step involves risk and readers should do their own research when making decisions.