On Wednesday, November 30th the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell delivered a well-received message that sent markets flying during a session of prepared remarks and questions at the Brookings Institution. This will be his last scheduled appearance before the central bank's next meeting in two weeks.

Is a bottom in Bitcoin finally here? If not then where? I have been saying that Bitcoin’s bottom would occur between $17,800 - $13,000 for an entire year now, ever since we came off of our new all-time high last November.

The bottom in Bitcoin that held for two years was taken out as prices eroded to new lows starting on November 8th. From the open on Nov.8th to the low on Nov. 9th Bitcoin’s price declined by $5,000, nearly 25% in two days.

As far as payment portals go it has been roughly two years since a large-scale payment solutions company hopped on the Bitcoin bullet train. Yesterday MoneyGram announced a new cryptocurrency service that allows customers to buy and sell Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), and Ethereum (ETH) on the company’s mobile app.

This week Bitcoin broke out of the descending triangle that had defined its price action since the end of May. The top of the upper resistance trendline of this formation was tested on three separate occasions on the first week of June, in mid-August, and in mid-September.  In each of these attempts at testing the upper resistance, the bearish faction showed its teeth.

Yesterday Bitcoin entered a well-received rally that took the world’s first digital currency back above $20,000 for the first time since mid-September when it briefly moved above $20,000 helped along from hype surrounding the Ethereum merge.

Bitcoin’s volatility continues to fall as the price holds in the $19,000 range. After gapping down from just above 80 in July to around 25 in August the Bitcoin Historical Volatility Index (BITMEX), volatility continues to decline breaking below 20 last week. Today the volatility index hit its lowest point in over a year at 18.83.

In trading last night overseas, Bitcoin broke out above its descending triangle for the first time since June. BTC traded over its resistance trendline at around 11 PM ET, the same hour hitting the high for the week at $19,954. BTC held above the upper resistance trend line for almost 6 hours before moving back into the descending triangle.

In our last article, we discussed the flat bottom descending top in BTC, which defined resistance since the beginning of June. We noted that this upper resistance line was tested five times giving us an indication that this resistance has tracked the highs over the last five months. Today we have yet to witness BTC break out of this wedge pattern as we get closer to the ever-narrowing apex.

After a two-day rally that ended two weeks of stable prices Bitcoin failed to move above its descending resistance trendline. This descending top goes back to the hard fall BTC took on May 9th, 2022, giving up $4,000 on that day. Since that time, we have had five failed attempts at cracking this resistance line including yesterday’s try.