All-time highs meet alt season: 5 things to watch in Bitcoin this week

Bitcoin (BTC) is almost unrecognizable as it starts the first working week of 2021, retaining the $30,000 support and hitting astronomical new highs.

Hard to believe for hodlers, price action continues to wow as Monday gets underway, and attention is turning to what might be next.

Cointelegraph takes a look at five factors that investors might wish to monitor in the coming days in what is one of the most volatile Bitcoin trading markets in history.

Stocks hit highs as Bitcoin “flips” the Dow

It’s another curious week for stocks as last week’s all-time highs on several indexes look set to continue.

As the first few days of the new year drew to a close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 hit record highs — this despite the encroaching coronavirus sparking ever tighter lockdowns across the world.

For Bitcoiners, the Dow took on a different type of significance last week, with BTC/USD “flipping” its 30,600 points for the first time as it continued on to $34,000 and higher.

This week, analysts predict stocks to go higher still, part of a long-anticipated rebound which, much like last year, appears at odds with the situation on the ground.

“A strong vaccine-led recovery in global growth will provide a large boost to cyclical assets, including commodities, cyclical equity sectors and emerging markets,” Goldman Sachs told Bloomberg as part of its 2021 outlook survey.

“However, the path may be tricky as the market balances spot growth weakness with a forward outlook that is more supportive.”

Not everyone was so bullish. Fidelity, the asset manager well known for its pioneering pro-Bitcoin stance, countered:

“2021 is likely to be about capturing relative opportunities as investors price in economic and virus-related developments.”

Futures gaps may stay forever unfilled

After clinching $34,800 over the weekend, Bitcoin is looking decidedly in need of a consolidatory period as the week gets underway.

The highs, which still seem unreal to many investors, have plenty of hurdles to overcome in order to defend themselves and not allow Bitcoin to cave to the bears.

One of the most pressing issues for traders is the Bitcoin futures “gap” produced by the weekend’s volatility. Lying between $29,695 and $32,400, the gap joins the one left last week as one of the largest ever seen on the Bitcoin futures chart.

As Cointelegraph has previously explained, “gaps” in futures are the differences in price between the end of futures trading on a Friday and the start on the following Monday. When heavy volatility hits in between, the resulting void often forms a short-term price target.

In this case, Bitcoin thus has an impetus to retest levels at just below $30,000. Should it wish to fill lower gaps that remain untested, the market may dip further still. The pit of last weekend’s gap lies at…