Bitcoin stagnates, Ethereum flashes the worst weekly signal in years: analysis

The crypto market entered the second week of July with sluggish performance

Bitcoin barely remained at just over $60,000, having briefly hit a 21-month low last week, falling below $58,000. The price of Ethereum fell below $1750, down about 4% on the day, and the cumulative decline over the past year has exceeded 30%. The overall market fell, and the altcoins fell even more severely.

Since January, the total market value of cryptocurrencies excluding Bitcoin and Ethereum has shrunk by 30%. Since listing, cryptocurrency companies such as Gemini, Bullish, and BitGo have performed poorly in their initial public offerings.

Understandably, market sentiment is quite pessimistic. But history has shown that pessimism often goes wrong at the most inappropriate times. Since 2009, every major bitcoin bear market cycle has ended with panic selling, extreme fear, and seemingly obvious opportunities to short.

Bitcoin has gone through four such cycles, and almost every time, it follows a consolidation phase before halving-that is, prices fall before the next supply shock and market sentiment deteriorates-a new round of gains. The next halving (by which time mining rewards and the supply of newly issued bitcoins will be halved) will be about 21 months later, and historically, this is usually the time to start accumulating assets, despite market unease.

How is this cycle different? Cryptocurrency has now become mainstream. Since the last halving, changes to spot Bitcoin ETFs, institutional balance sheets, formal accounting standards, and the legislative framework for digital assets have all emerged. Bitcoin\'s institutional status today is fundamentally different from when it was a niche hobby. This does not eliminate volatility, it just means that this bear market has different participants than last time. Whether this will accelerate or delay the market\'s bottoming out remains an open question. At least for now, the charts give their answers.

Bitcoin Price: Optimism with Additional Conditions

Bitcoin opened this week at $63,587, once hitting a high of $64,657, and then closed lower, indicating that bulls had tried to push prices up but failed. Bitcoin is currently trading at US$61,749, down 2.89% this week. Significantly, BTC fell to $58,035 a few days ago-a 21-month low-before recovering.

The level of resistance that prevents prices from soaring is the focus of everyone\'s attention. The $64,000 to $65,000 area has served as a price ceiling since early June, and this week\'s K-line trend only briefly touched the area before falling back. On one prediction market, traders believe there is about a 73% chance Bitcoin will touch $55,000, while there is a 27% chance it will touch $84,000. Forecasters \'mood shifted on June 2-before that, savvy money was more bullish.

Zoom in on the weekly chart, the Fibonacci retracement levels for the entire downtrend starting at $82,833 show that the $73,245 and $70,284 areas are the most active trading areas. The average trend index (ADX) is 30.7. ADX measures the strength of a trend regardless of direction and ranges from 0 to 100. When the index is above 25, it indicates that there is an actual trend in the market, and 30.7 is clearly in this range. From a directional perspective, bears occupy a controlling position.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is 36.8. The RSI measures market momentum and also uses a scale of 0 to 100: above 70 means oversold, which usually triggers profit-taking; below 30 means oversold, which usually attracts buyers. At the 36.8 level, Bitcoin is close to oversold, but has not yet exceeded the threshold. Technically, selling pressure may be near exhaustion-but \"close\" does not mean \"completed\". The market seems to be selling in panic.

One thing to note for bears: the picture painted by the exponential moving average remains bullish. Bitcoin\'s 50-week exponential moving average (EMA) is still above its 200-week EMA. When this happens, it forms what traders call a \"golden fork\", which has not yet expired. But the gap between the two is rapidly narrowing. The opposite side of the golden cross is the \"dead cross\". If it appears on the weekly chart, it will represent a structural shift, and few Bitcoin cycles will survive without a deeper sell-off. Fortunately for permanent bulls, this hasn\'t happened for some time.

The bullish reasons are mainly based on fundamentals: the spot Bitcoin ETF has just broken a 10-day outflow trend totaling US$2.7 billion, with a net inflow of US$221.7 million in a single day on July 2, and has since attracted about US$510 million in capital inflows. Glassnode\'s on-chain data shows that long-term holders have resumed accumulation after a period of dispersion, and buying activity among various wallet groups is expanding. The Fear and Greed Index is 23, which is in the \"extreme fear\" range, which historically has been a reverse signal-not an absolute guarantee, but a pattern. Judging from the weekly chart, some indicators are approaching oversold territory, indicating that the sell-off may be coming to an end rather than just beginning.

For the bearish scenario, the technical side is more obvious for those focusing on shorter time frames: Bitcoin failed to break through the resistance level that everyone is focusing on. The ADX is 30.7, combined with a bearish directional index, confirming a downward trend with real momentum. Year-to-date ETF outflows remain negative. Citigroup lowered its 12-month Bitcoin forecast to $82,000, with a pessimistic scenario of $53,000. The Fibonacci target of $57,735 below current prices remains the most significant technical attraction on the chart. The forecast market believes that there is a 72.3% chance that Bitcoin will hit US$55,000 first.

Ethereum price: a dead fork that no one wants to see

Ethereum traded at $1,729.7, down 3.06% from the week\'s opening price of $1,784. That number alone is painful enough. But more important is not the weekly K line this week, but what just happened inside the weekly chart. Ethereum has just confirmed a dead fork at the weekly level. The 50-week exponential moving average fell below the 200-week EMA for the first time in years. The next few days/weeks will be key, and if the dead fork continues and is not reversed, it will determine the position layout of long-term traders.

In a short time frame, dead forks often occur and can be quickly reversed. But on weekly charts, they represent structural deterioration that lasts for months and tend to determine the entire market stage rather than a single move. Ethereum\'s daily chart has been in a dead fork since November 2025, when ETH peaked at close to $4,100, and then began a long-term decline. This bearish daily structure has now been transmitted to the weekly framework-a confirmation of a longer time dimension that suggests that the bear market trend is not a flash in the pan.

Traders seem to be as bearish on Ethereum as they are on Bitcoin, also predicting a 72% chance that ETH will hit US$1,500 first instead of US$3,000. Those odds shifted in May-before that, market expectations for the two outcomes were close to 50 - 50. The gap between options has now reached its largest since June, indicating that confidence in the bearish camp has increased significantly among traders investing in real money.

Fibonacci retracement levels for the downtrend from US$2,465.8 to US$1,505.1 show that the US$2,098.9 to US$1,985.5 region is the most active area to watch. The current price of US$1,729.7 is close to the Fibonacci level of US$1,731.8. Below this, the next meaningful reference technology bit is the $1,500 price zone. This is exactly the pessimistic scenario that market traders are betting on. The ADX reading was 26.5, with a bearish direction-the same as Bitcoin, only more pronounced. The trend has been confirmed, the direction is downward, and the bears have the momentum advantage. The RSI is 36.9, almost in line with Bitcoin\'s reading: bearish, close to oversold but not yet reached.

Some hope for bulls: Historically, Ethereum\'s weekly dead forks have usually occurred in the final phase of a bear market cycle, not the mid-term. In previous cycles, a three-day dead fork often coincides with or follows important market bottoms. In other words, this is exactly the panic area that many people experience waiting to buy assets at a bargain price. If this pattern holds, then the pain may be near the end rather than the beginning. The ETH spot ETF turned positive on July 2, with a net inflow of US$29.1 million during the week. The RSI is close to oversold on the weekly chart-an area that has historically been a strong accumulation signal for patient buyers.

Reason for looking at the bears now: A dead weekly fork is a new structural reality, not a temporary signal-it takes months to develop and often takes months to reverse. The U.S. spot ETH ETF recorded a record 17 consecutive days of net outflows in May, totaling US$401 million, followed by another 10 consecutive days of outflows in June. The Fibonacci target of $1,500 is technically the next major level, and it is the exact number that most people predict 72.3% of the market are betting. Citi\'s pessimistic forecast for ETH is $1,094. The weekly structure does not give bulls much room to maneuver unless Ethereum prices regain the $2,000 zone-which requires a 15.6% rise from current levels and a sustained trend reversal that has not been confirmed by any indicators.