Bitcoin algos sell at Wall Street open as BTC price struggles at $66K

Bitcoin bids and asks build around BTC spot price as analysis sees the chance of a liquidity hunt next.

Bitcoin (BTC) stalled its post-halving comeback at the April 22 Wall Street open as a “sea” of automated trading algorithms sold BTC.

Bids and asks squeeze BTC price

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC price momentum waning after hitting weekly highs of $66,546 on Bitstamp.

Despite a promising comeback after the prior week’s lows, Bitcoin faced stiff resistance on the day, with buyers outnumbered.

“So far spot flow is basically just one individual bidding vs a sea of algos selling. Could be a boring session till later,” popular trader Skew summarized on X (formerly Twitter).

Skew had previously noted that liquidity was moving closer to spot price — typically an attempt to lure the market.

The latest data from monitoring resource CoinGlass showed a cloud of bids appearing between $64,000 and $65,500 on April 22.

A similar picture involved fresh ask liquidity, which was stacked between $66,500 and $67,750.

“Time will tell if they’re spoof orders,” Skew added.

Analyst Matthew Hyland meanwhile revealed a key moving average being held at the latest weekly close.

Bitcoin’s 10-week simple moving average (SMA) functions as an important bull market support line, and has successfully buoyed the market since October 2023.

The 10-week SMA stood at $65,686 at the time of writing.

One more long liquidity hunt?

BTC price action thus adhered to a theory put forward by popular trader and analyst Credible Crypto earlier in the day.

Related: BTC trades at ‘deep discount’ after halving — 5 things to know in Bitcoin this week

BTC/USD, he suggested, could return lower to liquidate long positions once more before definitively reversing upward. Open Interest (OI), he noted, was already increasing.

“If this move up falters before it really even begins then I’d expect something like this to develop,” part of an X post explained alongside an illustrative chart.

“Decent OI ramp on LTF here since this move up began so a move back down to wipe longs before the ‘real’ pump would not surprise me.”

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.