BTC price dices with $52K as CME Bitcoin futures OI hits record $6.8B

Bitcoin BTCUSD returned to the center of an intraday trading range into the Feb. 18 weekly close as bulls profited from weekend trading.

Trader: Bitcoin rally “healthy” despite OI surge

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed $52,000 acting as a focal point for BTC price consolidation.

The largest cryptocurrency saw a dip to $50,680 on Bitstamp the day prior, marking its lowest levels in several days.

A swift rebound added nearly $1,500 in the hours that followed, however, and at the time of writing, the lows had not seen a fresh retest.

Analyzing the week’s action, popular trader Skew flagged a change in trader behavior in the latter half of the Wall Street trading week.

Spot buying, he revealed, had subsided toward the weekend, with “mostly taker driven dips & bounces since.”

“So far seeing some spot buyers return here with binance spot leading,” he wrote on the day.

Meanwhile, burgeoning open interest (OI) on CME Group’s Bitcoin futures markets hitting a record $6.8 billion was indicative of volatility to come, per data from monitoring resource CoinGlass.

Discussing open interest more broadly, however, popular trader Daan Crypto Trades noted a divergence when this was denominated in BTC.

“This +100% rally from October has been healthy in terms of leverage imo,” he argued.

Key BTC price weekly close levels emerge

Continuing, Skew said that bulls needed to preserve upward momentum in Bitcoin’s relative strength index (RSI) on 4-hour timeframes into the weekly close.

The 21-period exponential moving average (EMA), currently at $51,500, was also important.

“In terms of spot flows around $52K - $53K area, notable spot selling into bounces which is often the case with profit taking,” he explained about the landscape on Binance.

Fellow trader and analyst Matthew Hyland highlighted $49,000 as the ultimate line in the sand to protect for the close.

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.