Bitcoin’s (BTC) month-long consolidation between $50,000 and $60,000 reflects a tug of war between buyers and sellers. But from a long-term perspective, the uptrend remains intact.
That’s important to consider as some cryptocurrency traders get caught up in short-term volatility, according to Katie Stockton, technical analyst at Fairlead Strategies.
“The breakouts that we’ve already seen in bitcoin have already been exceeded,” said Stockton during an interview on CoinDesk TV's "First Mover." She prefers to see a decisive breakout from the current consolidation phase in order to derive an upside target.
Despite the pickup in short-term volatility, Stockton determined that intraday declines of about 3%-6% are less impactful on the chart. This suggests ongoing support from trend and momentum indicators.
As BTC consolidates, traders could look to altcoins for upside potential. “The rotation out of bitcoin is certainly happening to the benefit of these other cryptos.”
Stockton uses a relative rotation graph (RRG) to measure five-day trend and momentum of altcoins versus BTC.
EOS has outperformed BTC over the past five days, while ether (ETH) has shifted from the improving quadrant to the leading quadrant over the same time period. However, Stockton mentioned, a pullback below $1,974 in ETH could register a failed breakout, giving way to a deeper pullback or additional consolidation.