It was in the last week of July that Bitcoin breached the psychologically important level of $10,000. Since then, the largest cryptocurrency has made three failed attempts, each week of August, to breach $12,000.

At the time of writing, BTC/USD has been trading around $11,700 in red, with just $1.7 billion recorded in ‘real’ volume.

The crypto market is taking its cues from the US dollar, says analyst Mati Greenspan. The US dollar index rebounded yesterday after fresh, making lows to climb to 93.2.

Although the short-term daily correlation isn’t very strong, Bitcoin, and crypto, for the time being, are affected by the USD movement. Even gold has been reacting to USD.

“Even though we're in a bull market, seeing this type of unidirectional market is quite rare,” noted Greenspan in his daily newsletter.

Amidst this lackluster performance, what’s positive is that bitcoin is strengthening its position above the key $10,000 and $10,500 levels. There haven't been many days historically where BTC maintained above these levels.

During the last bull cycle, bitcoin plowed through $10,000 level at the end of November, and before mid-December, we had already made a new all-time high of $20,000. It didn’t even take nine weeks for the digital asset to maintain this level before we had the rollercoaster ride back below this level.

But now, in this new bull cycle, as we move towards the all-time high for new highs, it is the time to make it a strong support level before we push for higher grounds.

$BTC streaks above $10k. pic.twitter.com/YIeZsluq6d

— Hsaka (@HsakaTrades) August 19, 2020

In the meantime, as long as we keep above $10,670, “the mid-term trend remains bullish,” states OKEx in its daily insight. It also notes, “the current rebound isn’t that strong, and the trading volume is gradually shrinking.”

The spot market has started to lose its volume, but the bitcoin derivatives market is looking strong with lots of open positions.

Bitcoin futures open interest is sitting at an all-time high of $5 billion while total OI on bitcoin options is at $2 billion, an increase of 6x since the start of the year. Meanwhile, OKEx stated,

“Amid this week's sharp rise and fall for Bitcoin futures market data indicates retail traders chasing the rally got trapped.”

Moreover, the gains are still strong, with Bitcoin up 60% YTD. While the digital asset has recovered more than 200% since the March sell-off, BTC has also gained 36% since the May 11 halving. Crypto data provider IntoTheBlock noted,

“Similar to 2016, after the halving, the price Bitcoin cryptocurrency plunged followed by uncharacteristically stagnant volatility, recording its second-lowest period of 30-day volatility.”

While the macro environment; unprecedented money printing, inflation fears, and ultra-low interest rates remains in bitcoin’s favor, the network itself is giving off strong bull signals. On the supply side, there has never been a higher level of Bitcoin in its history that was owned for more than one year with exchange balances the lowest since May 2019.

On the demand side, daily active addresses are at its highest level since 2017. “Whale” Index – the number of unique BTC addresses with balances over 1,000 Bitcoin is also near its ATH with mining profitability ratio calling it a good buying opportunity.

The flagship cryptocurrency is just taking a breather before it firmly passes the $12k hurdle. This cooldown period meanwhile is party time for altcoins.

Today’s winner is OMG Network that went up 246% over the last five days. 0x is also up 37% today. However, LINK seems to be losing its bullishness, dropping fast, down 11% today.

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