Bitcoin price opened the week with a strong push to $66,300, but will bulls be able to maintain the current momentum? For the past 7-months, a majority of BTC price rallies have been capped at overhead resistance, most recently the $65,000 to $66,000 level where price has yet to secure a daily close. 

Today’s price rally puts Bitcoin in a similar scenario where the descending channel’s trendline was briefly breached but it’s yet to be determined if BTC will close the day firmly above the channel resistance. 

BTC/USDT 1-day chart (Binance). Source: TradingView

Similar to previous rallies, the price break out was partially driven by the futures markets, and the activity is easy to pinpoint by the surge in the the funding rate and open interest accompanying BTC’s pop to $66,300 as short traders became forced buyers. 

BTC/USDT 1-hour Binance perps chart. Source: TRDR.io

While discussing the intra-day price action with JJ, HighStrike’s head of crypto options and derivatives, the analyst said:

“BTC surged higher as a breakout back above the 200-day brought in renewed interest from call buyers in the options market. The most popular among these strikes have been 75-100k calls for Q4 of this year as mentioned by Kelly Greer of Galaxy Digital.”

options nerds are long 75k-100k calls (red bars). mostly december, some october and november as well. around 70k of open interest across those strikes on deribit. buying picked up end of last week when the twap seller slowed down, visible in implied vol and skew

uptober 🕯️ pic.twitter.com/e2xHYx7rSA

— Kelly Greer (@kellyjgreer) October 14, 2024

JJ explained that in in his view, “There are many narratives fueling bullish price action, most popular among them seem to be Trump’s rising Polymarket odds reaching levels not seen since July when BTC last touched $70,000, and the recent breakout to new year to date highs for MicroStrategy (MSTR).”

When asked whether or not today’s rally above $66,000 was representative of a definitive trend change, JJ warned that “resistance above the September highs still remains as the Coinbase order book has considerable asks stacked up above there.” 

“Though the stars are aligning for a Q4 breakout to new all-time highs, participants should still expect a range bound market with liquidity sweeps to the downside so long as these ask walls remain.”

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.