Bitcoin (BTC) starts December with $100,000 in sight but out of reach as the sun sets on a month like no other.
Ranging below all-time highs is keeping Bitcoin traders guessing over when the magical six-figure BTC price tag will appear.
November 2024 sets the record for Bitcoin’s biggest US dollar gains in a single monthly candle.
Funding rates show a lack of overheated market conditions — a key ingredient in supporting further upside.
A bumper week of US employment data precedes the Federal Reserve’s crunch interest rate decision.
Onchain profit trends are channeling classic parabolic bull market vibes with a rare SOPR “golden cross.”
Bitcoin works on “bull flag” below $100,000
Bitcoin avoided flash volatility into the weekly close after November validated a key BTC price breakout.
Still circling $95,000 on Dec. 2, per data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, BTC/USD continues to coil beneath what many see as a watershed level: $100,000.
BTC/USD 1-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
Putting recent BTC price action in context, popular trader and analyst Rekt Capital revealed a successful support retest.
“Bitcoin has rebounded +7% to the upside after successfully retesting ~$91,000 (red) as support,” he wrote about the daily chart in a recent post on X.
“In the short-term, it will be worth watching how the price action continues to develop within this potential Bull Flagging structure.”
BTC/USD 1-day chart. Source: Rekt Capital/X
Rekt Capital added that a daily close above $97,450 “could kickstart additional trend continuation to get closer to challenging $100,000 once again.”
To the downside, Keith Alan, co-founder of trading resource Material Indicators, noted support now in place at $95,000 and $90,000.
BTC/USDT liquidity data. Source: Keith Alan/X
“Short term retest of support is possible,” trader Kevin Svenson reasoned in part of his own X post examining 4-hour timeframes.
“Overall my bias is bullish despite short term.”
BTC/USD 4-hour chart. Source: Kevin Svenson/X
An accompanying chart targeted $93,500 as the potential next support retest zone.
Monthly BTC price performance: “A new ballgame”
Bitcoin may not be at $100,000 yet, but over the weekend, BTC price action quietly made history.
Capping the November monthly candle at $96,400, BTC/USD sealed its biggest-ever one-month US dollar gains.
“It’s a new ballgame,” one bullish reaction from Cory Klippsten, CEO of investment platform Swan Bitcoin, read.
BTC/USD 1-month chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
The candle clearly stands out on the monthly chart as something unprecedented, yet in percentage terms, it is in fact nothing out of the ordinary.
Data from monitoring resource CoinGlass showed that at just above 37%, November’s upside does not even compete with Bitcoin’s most successful eleventh months of the year.
BTC/USD monthly returns (screenshot). Source: CoinGlass
For Charles Edwards, founder of quantitative Bitcoin and digital asset fund Capriole Investments, it should soon redress the balance.
“Every cycle we get 4-7 months of insane Bitcoin price discovery returns. We have just had our 1st in November!” he argued at the weekend.
“The next months will have insane long opportunities. The normie mind is not ready.”
Edwards continued that breaking the $100,000 mark would inject a new wave of parabolic behavior into price.
“The real FOMO begins above $100K. Once the epic sell wall falls we enter a supply vacuum with a new retail driven infinite bid. Do the math,” he wrote.
Previously, Edwards suggested that Bitcoin should copy gold after its own breakout through key resistance this year.
Funding rates stay steady
Market stability may well allow a shot at acclimatizing to six-figure Bitcoin.
As noted by popular trader Jelle this week, funding rates across exchanges remain at manageable levels despite price trading near all-time highs.
“Lots of talk about price needing a bigger pullback & the market being unhealthy. Meanwhile, price chilling at $95,000 with near-baseline funding,” he told X followers.
Crypto funding rates heatmap (screenshot). Source: CoinGlass
Funding has exhibited that relaxed trend for weeks, even as BTC/USD sets repeat new records.
“Funding rates on bitcoin are still really low, considering the number of people that have been calling ‘top signals’ recently…” popular analytics account Bitcoindata21 echoed on X last week.
Bitcoin futures funding rates. Source: Bitcoindata21/X
Bitcoindata21 compared the current Bitcoin bull market to 2021, when funding rates were multiple times higher. Even March 2024, when BTC/USD set old all-time highs of $73,800, saw considerably higher funding.
US jobs data in the spotlight
The labor market dominates the week’s US macroeconomic data releases as the countdown to the Fed’s next interest rate decision begins.
Job openings on Dec. 3 will be followed by jobless claims two days later, the week then ending with unemployment reports.
“It's a huge week for the labor market,” trading resource The Kobeissi Letter summarized while commenting on the macro diary.
Kobeissi noted that the prints constitute “the last week of labor market data before the December 18th Fed meeting.”
On Dec. 18, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will decide whether or not to change benchmark interest rates. As Cointelegraph continues to report, overall bets remain skewed to a fresh 0.25% decrease, but markets are much less certain than in previous months.
Data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool currently puts the odds of a 0.25% cut at 67%.
Fed target rate probabilities. Source: CME Group
“If a Bitcoin breakout doesn't happen before the Dec 18th FOMC Meeting, a 25bps rate cut would not only be an early Christmas gift, it will likely be the catalyst that sends $BTC past $100k,” Material Indicators’ Alan continued.
“On the other hand, no cut could be the catalyst that triggers a correction and a BTC Flash Sale.”
Bitcoin metric golden cross teases “sharp rise”
Bitcoin analysis is unearthing new signals supporting upside continuation.
This week, it is the Spent Output Profit Ratio (SOPR) on the radar, as it prints only its second “gold cross” of the current bull market.
Highlighting the event, Crypto Dan, a contributor to onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant, said that its implications were unequivocal.
“After the golden cross appears, the market usually starts a strong rise within 2 months at the latest,” he wrote in one of CryptoQuant’s Quicktake blog posts on Dec. 2.
“The upcoming rise is likely to be a 'sharp rise in the final phase of the upward cycle.'”
Bitcoin SOPR data (screenshot). Source: CryptoQuant
SOPR measures whether or not coins used in onchain transactions are moving at a higher or lower price to their last transaction, thus expressing onchain profitability. A golden cross occurs when the metric’s 30-day moving average crosses above its 365-day equivalent.
“As the market moves towards the later stages of the cycle, the magnitude of the rise tends to be larger, and the periods of decline/adjustment are shorter,” the post continued.
“If a steep rise occurs as implied by this indicator within the end of 2024 to the first quarter of 2025, it can be expected that new inflows and additional funds will enter the market, bringing it to its peak.”
Earlier, Cointelegraph reported on increased selling pressure from Bitcoin’s more seasoned hodler cohorts.
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.
