Bitcoin spikes to $41.7K highs as Ethereum nears $3K reclaim

Bitcoin (BTC) saw brisk upwards action during the Wall Street trading session on March 18, conforming to predictions that higher levels would see a retest.

Bets placed on $46,000

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it advanced $1,650 from daily lows to nearly match the $41,700 high from Wednesday.

The move buoyed traders, who began to reinforce their short-term view of levels near the top of Bitcoin's 2022 trading range being challenged.

For popular trader Pentoshi, however, such a result would not mean that BTC/USD had broken its downtrend definitively.

"Macro headwinds still too strong, but mid term I think we rally bc seller exhaustion before any shot at new lows or prev lows. So lean towards up then down imo late Q2," he told Twitter followers on the day.

Cold feet over macro conditions, as Cointelegraph reported, became a major issue this week, with multiple predictions of a major drawdown across major assets including BTC coming this year.

Analyst Matthew Hyland meanwhile noted that in any case, previous resistance around $40,000 was now increasingly looking flipped to support.

Looks like #Bitcoin has been using previous resistance ($40.3k) as new support the past few daysLets see if continues to rally: pic.twitter.com/PkkVYZ1LCG

— Matthew Hyland (@MatthewHyland_) March 18, 2022

Earlier, Crypto Ed had delivered a near-term forecast of $43,000 for BTC/USD before a potential fresh consolidation period, only then followed by an exit up or down.

In a subsequent update, he showed the pair breaking out of a "bull flag" formation in place over recent days. 

Ether (ETH), however, was a more interesting focus on the day.

#BTC Patience is a virtue, but finally breaking out of that bull flag pic.twitter.com/tCH9kVt7W6

— Ed_NL (@Crypto_Ed_NL) March 18, 2022

At the time of writing, Bitcoin circled $41,500 with volatility still heightened.

All aboard for a summer "altseason?"

On the topic of altcoins, the top ten cryptocurrencies by market cap saw varied movements Friday.

Related: Bitcoin could see $37.5K weekend dip before 'bigger move' next week — new report

ETH and Avalanche (AVAX) led the list, each climbing over 5% in 24 hours, but by contrast, other tokens were broadly flat.

ETH/USD thus came up on $3,000 once more, having advanced 15% over the past week.

The moves reignited talk of "altseason" appearing, with various commentators arguing for a new golden era for altcoins in the coming months.

Popular Twitter account BTCFuel offered the Summer as a potential peak for prices.

2/ To assess when the next #altseason peak will happen, I’ll be looking at charts of #Bitcoin, #Ethereum and the dominance of #altcoins of the different past altseasons. By aligning them “correctly” structure-wise, I found this provisional target zone when the peak should happen pic.twitter.com/8H1MyPONiF

— BTCfuel (@BTCfuel) March 17, 2022