Even as the rest of the world labored through the first month of the new decade enshrouded beneath louring apocalyptic clouds – a world war seemed briefly imminent, half of Australia turned to ashes, flash floods ravaged East Africa and the most virulent virus since the Spanish flu broke out – Bitcoin marched on impregnably to register the most bullish January in the post-Mt. Gox era.

Indeed, while reward halving could be adduced as a key factor, there is a compelling theory that the impact of the novel coronavirus epidemic on traditional financial markets has led investors to flock to Bitcoin as a readily accessible uncorrelated safe-haven asset in these times of uncertainty caused by pandemic fears.

Despite tailing off towards the end of the month ahead of the Chinese new year, BTC/USD closed the month of January in a convincing bullish engulfing at 9327, a 30% gain from December’s close of 7168.

In the early sessions of February, the 50-day SMA rose above the 100-day SMA to complete a golden cross and continues to pursue a cross above the 200-day SMA, which, being a more telling signal, would elicit a stronger wave of bullish market sentiment.

During the course of December and January, the pair continued trading in a potential inverse head and shoulders pattern, formed around .618 Fibonacci retracement level, which was duly completed towards the end of January.

However, the breakout has found resistance around 9700 and price continues to dither, finding support at the .382 level as RSI finds resistance around overbought territory of 70. A decisive daily close above 9700, backed by volume, is required to climb towards the target of 11200 from the inverse head and shoulders pattern breakout.

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After languishing in the shadows throughout 2019, altcoins stumbled upon a new lease of life in January. ETH/BTC completed a cross above both 100-day SMA and 200-day SMA on successive days on the last day of January and the first day of February respectively. This was immediately followed by a sharp bullish MACD divergence.

The next target for ETH/BTC would be breaking above 0.022 BTC, a level which the pair has struggled to breach since July 2019. The pair currently finds support at 0.02 BTC.

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XRP/BTC also finds itself on the brink of breaking above 200-day SMA for the first time since March 2019 after the market reacted strongly to a bullish RSI divergence at the end of January. A strong daily close above the 200-day SMA could spur the pair on to test the next level of resistance at 3600 sats.

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Elsewhere, Bitcoin Cash (BCH/BTC) BCH 1.98 and Litecoin (LTC/BTC) LTC 3.96 also witnessed a significant amount of bullish momentum in January, surging 42% and 31% respectively. This meant that Bitcoin’s market dominance slumped from 68% to 65%.

It should be interesting to see if the altcoin rally continues to gather further momentum in February or if Bitcoin begins to claw back to assert its dominance as the block reward halving draws ever closer.

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