Lower highs and lower lows have been the story of bitcoin for the last few weeks — market behavior that has left even the most bullish investors scratching their heads. Since bitcoin’s dramatic rise to $20,000, there has been a series of harsh drops temporarily stifled by feeble rallies. At the time of this article, BTC-USD has managed to break through three major levels of support of both the upper and lower parabolic trends, and a long-term linear trend:

Figure 1: BTC-USD, 1-Day Candles, Macro View

For the time being, BTC-USD has managed to find support on the macro 50% retracement values twice. The 50% retracement has proven to be a strong level of support, but if you take a closer look at the market, there isn’t a whole lot of support below those values all the way down to the $7,000 values.

Figure 2: BTC-USD, 6-HR Candles, Next Levels of Support

Looking at the way the 50 and 200 EMA are acting on the 6-hour chart, we see that the overall macro trend is moving downward and is actually finding resistance on the 200 EMA — values that for a long period of time have shown to be firm levels of support. On the 6-hour candles, the 50 and the 200 EMAs have formed a pattern called a “death cross.” A death cross is when the 50 EMA crosses downward and begins trending below the 200 EMA. This is typically a sign of a more macro, bearish market outlook.

If the 50% values fail to provide support on the next test, a sharp drop could be in store — a sharp drop similar to the one from $14.5K to $9K. Looking at the image above, it becomes apparent that the parabolic rise to $20K was so sharp and aggressive, there was little time to establish firm levels of support on the way up.

Well, now that we are moving back down in price, the aggressive growth comes with aggressive consequences. In our case, the aggressive consequence is the lack of support between the $10,000 and $7,000 values. If we do see a drop below the 50% Fibonacci line, it is highly likely to find support along the 61% values where the blue bar is shown above.

Another level of support is likely to be found on the daily 200 EMA, just above the blue region:
Figure 3: BTC-USD, 1-Day Candles, Daily 200 EMA

The 200 EMA on the daily chart has proven time and time again to be a firm level of support in previous corrective periods. It is highly unlikely that this level of support would break without several tests of the 200 EMA. In general, there is a strong confluence of support between the low $7,000s and high $8,000s. Given the current trend of lower highs and lower lows, I think it’s very likely we will see a test of these support levels.

Summary:

1. Bitcoin has managed to establish a trend of three lower highs and four lower lows to really cement the current bearish trend.
2. Bitcoin managed to find resistance on the parabolic curve and is now in the process of testing the support of the 50% Fibonacci retracement values.
3. If the current levels of support do not hold, support will be found between the $8,000s and $7,000s as there is a strong confluence of support in those price values.

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