Bitcoin hits wall at $80,000, one analyst says the pullback is temporary

Bitcoin BTC$77,779.73 is doing that familiar dance just below a big round number, $80,000, stalled by sellers even as fresh stablecoin liquidity, ETF demand and a risk-on equity market suggest the breakout may be delayed rather than denied.

The leading cryptocurrency briefly climbed above $79,000 during Asian trading hours before slipping back to trade below $78,000 recently. Over the past 24 hours, bitcoin has lost about 0.4%. Ether (ETH) has fallen 0.6%, XRP (XRP) is down 0.8% and Solana’s SOL has dropped more than 1%. Broader market benchmarks, including the CoinDesk Memecoin Index and Smart Contract Platform Select Capped Index, were also under pressure, falling more than 1% each.

According to Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro, the $80,000 level is acting as a near-term ceiling due to concentrated sell orders.

“Bitcoin has approached the $80K mark for the second time in the last few days, but has since experienced significant downward momentum. As it approaches this round figure, a build-up of sell orders is preventing the coin from moving further upwards,” he said in an email.

Still, Kuptsikevich argued the pullback appears temporary and consistent with a broader uptrend that began in late March.

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On-chain and ETF data offer support for that view. Crypto exchange Binance has recorded a net inflow of roughly $3.4 billion in stablecoins so far this month, following $3 billion in March, according to CryptoQuant data. That suggests fresh capital inflows, waiting for a entry point.

“This indicates an influx of new capital waiting to participate in the recovery,” pseudonymous CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost wrote on X.

Institutional demand remains strong. U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs have pulled in $2.44 billion in investor money this month, the most since October, when bitcoin hit record highs above $126,000.

But not everything is hunky-dory. Security risks in decentralized finance (DeFi) continue to weigh on sentiment. On Sunday, the SUI-based lending platform Scallop was exploited, resulting in the loss of roughly 150,000 SUI, or about $142,000. While small, it adds to a growing list of attacks this month, including the massive Drift and KelpDAO exploits.

Together, DeFi protocols have lost an estimated $623 million to hacks in April alone, according to Memento Research. Since inception, total losses from DeFi-related exploits have climbed to roughly $7.72 billion, according to data source DeFiLlama. This underscores a persistent structural risk for the sector.