Bitcoin retreated quickly in US morning trading on Thursday, falling 2% in a matter of minutes after once again failing to push through what is shaping up to be stiff resistance.
The major cryptocurrency fell to around $73,500 during the US morning session, now lower by more than 1% over the past 24 hours. The move came after the crypto bounced back again after surging above $75,000.
Meanwhile, the breathtaking stock market rally – which sent the Nasdaq and S&P 500 to record highs yesterday – took a break. A little more than an hour into the session, both of these indices were lower by around 0.1%.
Crypto-linked stocks also retreated across the board. Coinbase (COIN), Strategi (MSTR), Robinhood (HOOD), and Circle (CRCL) were all down around 2%-3% in morning trading.
Meanwhile, crude oil prices rose about 2% and retook the $90 level as ongoing geopolitical tensions continued to underpin supply concerns.
The $75,000-$76,000 range is key for bitcoin as that was the level it was trading at before the February 5th market crash that took BTC down to $60,000. A rise past this level could indicate a bigger move that could bring prices back to around the $90,000 mark where bitcoin started the year.
Bitcoin mining software
Bitcoin and software stocks moved almost in lockstep ahead of the Middle East conflict in late February, with a near 1:1 correlation. During this period, bitcoin has outperformed IGV, the software ETF.
Since the conflict began in late February, bitcoin is up more than 11%, while IGV is up about 2%, fueling a narrative that bitcoin had begun to decouple from software stocks.
Over the past five days, however, IGV is catching up, rising a whopping 11% while bitcoin has been flat. This suggests that rather than a pure decoupling, software may simply have lagged bitcoin and is now catching up.
IGV is up 1% on Thursday, while bitcoin is down 1.5%.
