The Bitcoin price was trading at $61,971 as of 3:30 ET, up 0.5% over the last 24 hours. 

According to data from TradingView, BTC turned down from a high of $63,103 on May 14 to set an intraday low at $61,259.

The BTC price has been stuck around $60,000, with market participants waiting for it to break out of consolidation and continue the uptrend it has been nurturing since October 2023.

Retail demand is required to send the price higher and usher the big crypto into a parabolic uptrend. Institutional capital continues to flow in as U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs attract more funds as the week begins.

According to data from Farside Investors, flows into spot Bitcoin ETFs turned positive on May 13, with net inflows totaling $66 million. While most issuers recorded zero flows, including BlackRock and Grayscale; Fidelity, Bitwise and VanEck, saw inflows of $38.6 million, $20.3 million and $7.1 million, respectively.

Therefore, as institutional investors continue pouring their money into the ETFs, BTC prices will likely go higher.

BTC seeks a breakout from a descending triangle

Bitcoin’s price since March 14 has been characterized by an extended downtrend, bull traps and bear traps, as shown in the figure below. The price action has been characterized by a series of lower highs and relatively equal lows, leading to the appearance of a descending triangle on the daily chart.

The triangle’s horizontal line at $60,500 has proven to be a key support area for the price over the last two months. This is reinforced by on-chain data from IntoTheBlock, whose In/Out of the Money Around Price (IOMAP) showed that the triangle’s horizontal line is within the $60,030 and $61,121 price range, where 435,280 BTC were previously bought by 923,560 addresses.

However, the same IOMAP chart revealed that the $63,000 level, around which the price is currently hovering, is acting as immediate resistance. Note that this area is embraced by the 50-day exponential moving average (EMA) and the descending trendline.

A daily candlestick close above this would confirm a bullish breakout from the chart formation, clearing the way back to all-time highs at $73,385 and later to the technical target of the governing chart pattern at $74,500.

This would represent a 20% uptick from the current price and would mean new all-time highs for the flagship cryptocurrency.

On the downside, the RSI still displays an extended downtrend and is still facing downward. The price strength at 46 suggests that the market conditions still favor the downside.

As such, the breakdown of the triangle at $60,600, embraced by the 100-day EMA, would spell doom for BTC bulls as losses to the 200-day EMA at $53,201 come into the picture.