Bitcoin shed 1.63% to $41,138 on Wednesday, January 19. The BTCUSD pair rebounded to $42,559 on the back of rising US stock indices but closed in the red as the benchmarks sank to new lows. The S&P 500 fell 1% to 4,532, and the Nasdaq slipped 1.15% to 14,340.25.
The benchmarks were led lower by mega-caps such as Amazon, Tesla and Apple, with investors ditching equities as they are unable to assess profit potential in view of monetary policy tightening by the Fed.
S&P index futures are up 0.45%, while Bitcoin is trading 0.69% higher. The BTCUSD pair is consolidating in a narrow range ahead of the North American opening. When there is no other news in the crypto industry that could trigger a rally, market participants take guidance from the performance of equity indices. When the latter go up, crypto currencies see gains, and decline when the benchmarks go down.
Buyers were supposed to launch an attack six hours ago. If there are no gains within the next 3-4 hours, we can expect sellers to take over. Price action is close to the support line, so the bears are just waiting for the right time to push the price below $40k. Interim support lies at $41,250.