Bitcoin faced a new wave of selling pressure after the Wall Street opening on December 15 and fell below the $41,700 level. At the time of writing, Bitcoin, which is trading at $42,108, data from TradingView indicates that the BTC/USD pair has experienced a drop of over $1,300 or 3.2% during the day.
What’s Happening on the Bitcoin Front?
Having just recovered from sudden volatile movements on December 14, Bitcoin could not maintain the $43,000 level due to selling pressure from investors. The weakness in Bitcoin’s price coincided with the news that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected the request from the major exchange Coinbase to reorganize its crypto rules. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler stated the following in his remarks:
“Today, the Commission denied a rulemaking petition on behalf of Coinbase Global, Inc. I am pleased to support the Commission’s decision for three reasons. First, the existing law and regulations also apply to crypto security markets. Second, the SEC is also addressing the crypto security markets through rulemaking. Third, maintaining the Commission’s discretion in determining its own rulemaking priorities is important.”
The SEC is already involved in the current crypto market process thanks to expectations that it will approve the first US Bitcoin spot price exchange-traded funds (ETFs) at the beginning of 2024. In an interview given to Bloomberg on December 13, Gensler accepted the recent legal process related to the institution’s repeated rejections of Bitcoin spot ETF applications.
Popular investor Skew, who analyzed the latest situation in the BTC/USD pair’s order books, noted an increase in bid support concentrated around the $41,000 level. Skew shared his thoughts on the matter as follows:
“The increasing bid depth around $41,000 is going to be interesting from here on out. The active supply is around $44,000.”
Whale Purchases Continue
Amid all these developments, Keith Alan, the founding partner of trade data source Material Indicators, drew attention to an ongoing struggle to turn an important weekly level into support. This step came as the 0.5 Fibonacci retracement line near the $42,500 level, which is one of several key hurdles to be crossed on the way to the all-time high of $69,000.
Material Indicators also pointed out that large-volume investors have increased their buying activities during this process, stating:
“Mega Whales are buying and trying to reclaim the $42,000 level.”