Bitcoin Price Breaks Above $72,000 Amid $200 Million Liquidations – Here is Why

The Bitcoin price is trading at $70,620 as of 3:30 am EST, up 0.6% over the last 24 hours. BTC price has retraced to this level after rallying above $72,000.

On Monday, April 9, the Bitcoin price rose from $69,350 at the Wall Street open, climbing as much as 5.5% to set a four-week high of $72,777.

The performance comes less than 10 days before the Bitcoin halving, an event historically leading to further price gains. Bitcoin halving happens every four years, where miner rewards are cut in half. After the next halving, which is approximated to occur on April 20, block rewards will reduce from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.

This will reduce BTC supply issuance, and the resulting scarcity is expected to drive the price higher as supply and demand forces come into play.

Bitcoin's bullishness at the start of the week has led to massive liquidations across the crypto derivatives market. BTC's rise above $72,000 has seen close to $200 million in leveraged crypto positions liquidated over the last 24 hours.

Traders betting against Bitcoin gains lost nearly $30.71 million in the past 24 hours. On the contrary, long position holders have gained nearly $30.20 million, according to Coinglass data.

Total crypto liquidations. Source: Coinglass

The largest single liquidation occurred on Binance, involving an ETH/BTC pair worth $6.49 million.

Bitcoin could exploit an ascending triangle to $83,000

BTC price action has led to the appearance of an ascending triangle on the daily chart, as shown below. Bulls will now try to push the price above the triangle's resistance line at $72,000. This would confirm a bullish breakout from the governing chart, with the retest of the all-time high at $73,835 being the first stop for BTC.

Higher than that, Bitcoin will enter price discovery first toward the $80,000 psychological level and later to the technical target of the triangle at $83,000. Such a move would bring the total gains to 17.5% from the current price.

The positive outlook was supported by the upward-facing moving averages which also provided support areas at $64,337 (50-day EMA), $57,528 (100-day EMA), and $49,926 (200-day EMA). The relative strength index (RSI) was still moving above the midline at 56, suggesting that the market conditions still favored the upside.

On the downside, a daily candlestick close below $70,000 would indicate the inability of the buyers to sustain the recovery. In such a scenario, Bitcoin could drop to seek solace from the triangle's ascending trendline at $68,000. The big crypto could continue consolidating within this triangle for a few days before making another attempt at recovery.