Sideways action persists in the crypto market as Bitcoin holds above $17,100

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(Kitco News) – Friday’s crypto market action was more of the same, as the majority of tokens continued to trade sideways in the absence of any major developments as investors await next week’s inflation and interest rate releases.

Conditions in the traditional markets were slightly worse as stocks fell into the market, resulting in the S&P, Dow and Nasdaq all ending the day in the red, down 0.7%, 0.9% and 0.7% respectively. For the week, the S&P fell 3.4%, the Dow fell 2.8%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 4%.

Data from TradingView shows that after holding above $17,250 throughout the morning trading session, Bitcoin (BTC) faced a wave of afternoon selling from bears attempting to push it back below major support at $17,000. At the time of writing, BTC is trading at $17,100, which marking a loss of 0.55% on the day, but a gain of 0.50% on the week.

BTC/USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

According to Kitco senior technical analyst Jim Wyckoff, “Prices remain in a sideways and choppy grind” due to the fact that “bulls and bears are on an even general technical playing field in the near term.”

With precious few signals coming from the current charts to provide insight into what’s coming next for Bitcoin, Wyckoff suggested that “The direction that BC prices break out of the current trading range is likely to be the direction of the next trending price movement.”

A survey by Crypto Twitter shows that the majority of analysts share a similar view, with many waiting for a clear signal from the market before making their next move.

Overall, the consensus remains that Bitcoin is oversold and in a good place for accumulation, which will continue to be the case until a meaningful breakout higher occurs.

#Bitcoin remains “oversold” based on the 18-month Williams%R oscillator, a signal that flashed in June 2022.

This statistically indicates that #BTC is in a deep accumulation zone.

As long as we remain oversold, there is no bull market.

Patient DCA purchase and risk management are key. pic.twitter.com/fx0tNgYkH4

— Caleb Franzen (@CalebFranzen) 8 December 2022

Altcoins track Bitcoin’s performance

The altcoin market largely followed Bitcoin’s lower trend on Friday, except for a few notable standouts that managed to post double-digit gains.

Daily performance in the cryptocurrency market. Source: Coin360

That includes Fetch AI (FET), which posted a 25.91% gain, a 13.28% increase for Ampleforth (AMPL) and a 10.92% gain for Numeraire (NMR).

The total cryptocurrency market cap is now $853 billion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 38.6%.