Bitcoin hits new 6-week high as Ethereum liquidates $240M more shorts

Bitcoin (BTC) attempted to retake $21,000 on Oct. 29 as weekend trading began on a strong footing.

Dollar lurks as BTC price rebounds

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it rebounded overnight to local highs of $21,078 on Bitstamp — enough to clinch new six-week highs.

The pair had seen a consolidatory phase ensue after its first trip to the $21,000 mark, the first time it had traded above $21,000 since Sep. 13.

The subsequent retracement was modest in character, Bitcoin not even testing $20,000 before reversing higher once more.

The end of the Wall Street trading week saw BTC price action follow United States equities, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index finishing Oct. 28 up 2.5% and 2.9%, respectively.

In his most recent Twitter update, popular trader and analyst Il Capo of Crypto maintained an existing theory over how short-term price action would unfold.

“Same same,” he summarized alongside a chart showing potential upside and downside target levels.

A cautionary macro note came from fellow trader John Wick, who warned that the United States dollar may make a return to pressure risk assets.

“Now we watch to see if we get a green Dot breaking above the Track line there,” he commented on a chart of the U.S. dollar index (DXY):

“If so that’s a bad combo leading into Fed announcement Nov 2nd.”

Wick was referring to next week’s Federal Reserve announcement on interest rate hikes, these widely expected to match September’s 0.75% increase.

ETH liquidations keep coming

Seemingly still skeptical of bulls’ abilities to produce further gains, trader liquidations were once again mounting on the day.

Related: Bitcoin weak hands ‘mostly gone’ as BTC ignores Amazon, Meta stock dip

Data from monitoring resource Coinglass showed shorts getting burned by the return to $21,000, with the tally for Oct. 29 totaling $95 million at the time of writing.

By contrast, the day prior had seen just $14 million of liquidated shorts, while Oct. 25 and 26 combined delivered $661 million.

“Retail all does the same thing and wonders why it never works out,” trading account IncomeSharks wrote on Twitter, citing a Cointelegraph article on liquidations impacting Ether (ETH) shorts:

“Record shorts at the bottom, record liqudiations at the bottom. Follow the herd and get slaughtered.”

ETH short liquidations on Oct. 29 were already at $240 million at the time of writing and looked set to eclipse previous days’ totals.

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