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Bitcoin (BTC) is leaving traders guessing as the bull market's future depends on the last week of February.

In multiple tweets on Feb. 17, popular trader and analyst Rekt Capital flagged crucial resistance battles ongoing on BTC/USD across multiple timeframes.

Bitcoin price squares off with bear market downtrend

Bitcoin hit new six-month highs this week as the latest innings of its 2023 recovery kept the bull-bear debate raging.

After a consolidatory start to the month, February has become a reckoning point for Bitcoin price strength. Gains have been harder to cement than in January, when BTC/USD finished up nearly 40%.

For Rekt Capital, now is the time to pay attention — whether trading daily, weekly or even monthly timeframes.

The total crypto market capitalization rejected at $1.13 trillion on Feb. 16, but there was no change in the month-long ascending channel structure. More importantly, this level represents a 43% gain in 2023, which is far from the $3 trillion level achieved in Nov. 2021. Still, the current recovery is notable. 

As shown above, the ascending channel initiated in mid-January has left some room for a 10% correction down to $1 trillion without breaking the bullish formation.

Investors reacted positively to the 5.6% year-on-year U.S. CPI inflation increase on Feb. 14 and the 3% retail sales monthly growth on Feb. 15. Bitcoin (BTC) had the biggest positive impact on the total crypto capitalization as its price gained 12.5% on the week.

One area of concern is a Feb. 16 story on Binance.US financial transactions to Merit Peak, a trading firm managed by CEO Changpeng Zhao. Interestingly, Reuters reported that a Binance.US spokesperson said Merit Peak was "neither trading nor providing any kind of services on the Binance.US platform."

The 10.1% weekly increase in total market capitalization was held back by the modest 1.8% gains from BNB and the XRP 2.5% price increase. On the other hand, only 3 out of the top 80 cryptocurrencies finished the week with negative performances.

The total crypto market capitalization rejected at $1.13 trillion on Feb. 16, but there was no change in the month-long ascending channel structure. More importantly, this level represents a 43% gain in 2023, which is far from the $3 trillion level achieved in November 2021. Still, the current recovery is notable. 

As shown above, the ascending channel initiated in mid-January has left some room for a 10% correction down to $1 trillion without breaking the bullish formation.

Investors reacted positively to the 5.6% year-on-year U.S. Consumer Price Index inflation increase on Feb. 14 and the 3% retail sales monthly growth on Feb. 15. Bitcoin (BTC) had the biggest positive impact on the total crypto capitalization as its price gained 12.5% on the week.

One area of concern is a Feb. 16 story on Binance.US financial transactions to Merit Peak, a trading firm managed by CEO Changpeng Zhao. Interestingly, Reuters reported that a Binance.US spokesperson said Merit Peak was “neither trading nor providing any kind of services on the Binance.US platform.”

The 10.1% weekly increase in total market capitalization was held back by the modest 1.8% gains from BNB (BNB) and the XRP (XRP) 2.5% price increase. On the other hand, only three out of the top 80 cryptocurrencies finished the week with negative performances.

The upcoming Ethereum Shanghai hard fork is slated to occur in March 2023, and the upgrade will cap off the network’s move to proof-of-stake (PoS), which started during the Merge on Sept. 15, 2022. Once Shanghai is implemented, previously locked Ether (ETH) will gradually become liquid for the first time since December 2020. 

According to on-chain Etherscan data, over 16.6 million ETH is currently locked in the PoS staking protocol, which was valued at $28 billion on Feb. 16, 2023. Ethereum’s move from proof-of-work (PoW) to PoS has started to achieve the original goal, which was to make Ether’s supply deflationary. In the 154 days since the Merge, over 24,800 ETH has been burned to make the token 0.05% deflationary on a yearly basis.

On. Feb. 16, the total Ether supply sits at 120 million, meaning that a little over 10% of the supply will be unlocked, with yield rewards starting with the Shanghai update.

Let’s explore what on-chain metrics can help identify what may happen during the Shanghai upgrade.

A portion of locked ETH is liquid thanks to liquid staking derivatives

In order to benefit from yield rewards before the Shanghai update, investors had to lock their ETH and run a reliable node. The minimum staking requirement of 32 locked ETH is entirely illiquid, meaning traders had limited utility options for these coins.