A combination of traders actively selling gold futures and dollar strength caused gold to break below $1800 in trading today. Unlike last week when traders effectively bought the dip on the three days that gold traded to intraday lows between $1798 and $1

NEW YORK (Aug 16)  Price action across the crypto market was flat on Monday following a weekend of high-flying meme coins as the cryptocurrency ecosystem remains on edge following the recent regulatory actions against taken against Tornado Cash.

The month-long uptrend for Bitcoin (BTC) has run into a firm wall of resistance at $25,000, where bulls have been soundly rejected in four attempts to break out higher over the past week. This suggests that a near-term pullback may be in the cards before a rally higher can succeed.

BTC/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The struggle to mount an effective push higher and continue Bitcoin’s price uptrend was addressed in the morning crypto update from Kitco contributor Jim Wyckoff, who warned that “bulls need to show fresh power soon to keep it alive.”

Taking a step back, Bitcoin’s recovery since the lows of June “has led to a buy signal from the weekly stochastic oscillator,” according to Florian Grummes, managing director at Midas Touch consulting.

“The recovery wave has also crossed the mid-trend line within the downtrend channel. Therefore, chances for a continuation of the recovery towards 29,000 USD to 30,000 USD are pretty good,” Grummes said in a letter to clients on Monday.

Overall, Grummes indicated that “it is still too early to speak of a sustainable trend reversal and the end of the crypto winter” while also noting that “a continuation of the recovery seems quite possible in any case and is the preferred scenario.”

As for what level to keep an eye on in the event of a bearish downturn, Grummes indicated that “the picture would degrade significantly” if the price of BTC fell below $22,000.

KITCO