Bitcoin dips below $81K as Brent crude climbs to highest level since March
In brief
- BTC/USD fell to $80,988 after Friday's Wall Street open before recovering to around $81,600.
- Brent crude rose nearly 3% to $116 per barrel, a level last seen in mid-March.
- Keith Alan of Material Indicators said BTC fell below its 50-day SMA at $81,781.
- Alan expects a $78,000 to $80,000 support test if bulls fail to reclaim the 50-day SMA by the close.
Oil and stocks weigh on risk
US equities didn't give crypto much cover. Cointelegraph reported that US stocks opened lower as worries about AI-sector spending landed at the same time as a jump in oil prices tied to tensions around the US-Iran war. At the time of its report, the S&P 500 was down 0.6%, the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.2% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.4%.
Oil prices also moved sharply. In Cointelegraph's account, concerns that the US might renew military strikes on Iran around the midterm elections pushed WTI crude above $102 per barrel on Friday, its highest level since Sept. 16. The 10-year US bond yield stayed below 5% (it reached 4.939% on Thursday, which Cointelegraph called its lowest since Sept. 23).
Economist Robin Brooks noted that oil prices were rising even though flows through the Persian Gulf were nearing pre-war levels for many nations, and Saudi Arabia's flows had passed its pre-war average. He wrote in analysis that this gap between prices and flows hadn't appeared since the war began.
In Brooks's view, markets are pricing in a large risk premium.
The 50-day line
The level traders are watching is the 50-day simple moving average. Keith Alan, cofounder of crypto trading platform Material Indicators, noted that BTC/USD had fallen below its 50-day SMA at $81,781, with bulls trying to reclaim it by the daily close. He saw potential for further tests of lower support levels.
“If they fail to do so by tonight’s close, I’m looking for a support test in the $78k - $80k range,” he told X followers.
Where support sits
Cointelegraph previously reported substantial BTC price support between $80,000 and $81,500. It's a zone that matters because it contains the aggregate cost basis for investors in spot Bitcoin ETFs. Friday's low of $80,988 sat inside that band, and the recovery to around $81,600 put BTC just above it but still under the 50-day average Alan flagged.
