Bitcoin price stagnates below $72,000 as consolidation looms: new study.

According to the latest data from Glassnode, Bitcoin (BTC) could fall into another “secular range-bound” price swing if key support levels are not restored.

Important points:

• Bitcoin is stuck between key cost-based levels and a 2022 type consolidation is predicted unless key support levels are regained.

• For Bitcoin price to break out of consolidation, it will need to remove the $72,000 resistance level.

Bitcoin faces overhead supply challenges

In the February 11th issue of its regular newsletter “The Week On-chain,” on-chain data provider Glassnode acknowledged that a major supply zone is limiting upside follow-through and “creating the potential for overhead resistance during a bailout rally.”

The BTC/USD pair is currently trading within a new range defined by a true market average of $79,200 and a realized price near $55,000, closely resembling the structural environment observed in H1 2022.

According to Glassnode, the price of Bitcoin is expected to continue to fluctuate within this corridor until new buyers emerge and supply gradually accumulates.

The chart below shows that the price spent from April to June 2022 became trapped between the true market average and the realized price before entering an extended bear market, bottoming out around $15,000 in November 2022.

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Breaking out of this range will require an extreme catalyst. “Either it decisively returns to its true market average around $79.2 million, shows new structural strength, or there is a general disruption similar to LUNA and FTX that pushes the price around $55,000 below realized price,” Glasnod said, adding:

“Absent such extreme circumstances, a prolonged period of in-range absorption remains the most likely path for the intermediate-term market.”

Glassnode’s UTXO Realized Price Distribution (URPD), an indicator of at what price the current set of Bitcoin UTXOs was created, also revealed that a wide and dense supply zone above $82,000 is gradually maturing into a cohort of long-term holders.

“Overhead supplies remain structurally heavy, with large clusters located between $82,000-97,000 and $100,000-117,000, representing cohorts that currently have significant unrealized losses,” the on-chain data analytics platform said, adding:

“These zones could act as potential sell-side overhangs, especially if a longer period below the surface or new downside volatility triggers further capitulation.”

Joanne Wesson, founder and CEO of AlphaRactal, said in a recent X post that Bitcoin is “where whales are closing longs and starting shorts compared to retail,” adding:

“Bitcoin is likely to enter a consolidation phase where it widens its range and builds structure over the next 30 days.”

Bitcoin price is stuck between two major levels

Bitcoin has rebounded 20% from its 15-month low below $60,000, but was hampered by resistance from the $72,000 level.

It is currently consolidating within the recently established sub-$65,000 support and $68,000 resistance, but analyst Dern Crypto Trades said the bulls “need to break out of that to attack $72,000 again.”

CoinGlass’ liquidation heatmap shows Bitcoin in a classic liquidation sandwich with heavy sell orders between $69,000 and $72,000 and dense bid positions below $66,000, as shown in the image below. This highlights the relative tightness of the current market structure.

As reported by Cointelegraph, Bitcoin needs to break through the $72,000 resistance level to regain hopes of recovering towards the 20-day exponential moving average of $76,000 and the 50-day simple moving average of above $85,000, suggesting that BTC price may have bottomed out in the near term.