Weekly Price Update: BTC/USD and ETH/USD struggle below major resistance areas

Bitcoin touched $9,944 while ETH/USD dropped to lows of $316 over the weekend.

BTC/USD broke below $10k and is struggling around $10,200 while ETH/USD bulls need to clear $350 before attacking $400.

The crypto market in general is seeing some green after a week of sell-off pressure pushed most coins to lows seen pre-last month.

A more dramatic action this past weekend was perhaps seen with DeFi token SUSHI. The SushiSwap protocol’s founding developer ‘Chef Nomi’ sold off his holdings, with the token’s price tanking close to 80% to touch lows of $1.17.

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried then took over the project’s keys, with prices rebounding 30% as of writing.

BTC/USD

The top cryptocurrency had a weekly close below the psychological $10k the week ending July 20 at $9,944; with $10,200 the timeframe’s high.

This past week, Bitcoin tanked from highs of $12k to test prices just under $10k before printing the $10,260 weekly candle. Bulls face a huge fight to retake $11,000 as sellers continue to reject deals around $10,300.

BTC/USD does however have healthy support around $10,000, which is a major demand zone. According to data from IntoTheBlock, over 78% of wallets purchased the digital asset around this price level to suggest investors are likely to hold out in the hope for more gains.

Short term, however, Bitcoin is mostly bearish and could trade within a narrow range at $10,100-$10,400 if the technical picture does not improve. This outlook is reinforced by the Relative Strength Index and a MACD that are both holding deep within the bear territory.

Recovery above the immediate resistance level at $10,400 could bring $11k into the picture and see bulls look to retest the next major hurdle at $11,160 (SMA50). A breakdown at this level brings the CME gap to $9,700 and below that the SMA200 ($9,086) into the picture.

ETH/USD

Ethereum has recovered some of the losses posted over the past week and is trading around $349 after the ETH/USD pair plunged to lows of $316 over the weekend.

ETH/USD is up more than 6% in intraday trades and is looking strong on the lower time frames. However, renewed selling pressure above the 24-hour high $359 and major resistance area at $400 will likely scamper any chance of short term retest of last week’s highs near $500.

Bulls must aim at taking out resistance around $374 (SMA50 on the daily charts) to sustain momentum towards the psychological $400.

At the time of writing, the bulls have failed to break above $360 with prices touching an intraday high of $359. If bears exert added pressure, Ethereum’s price could retest lows of $319 seen over the weekend. ETH/USD could even revisit the $305 price level if bulls run into exhaustion in later sessions. That key support area is marked by the intraday SMA100.