US National Debt Passes $35T — 5 Things to Know in Bitcoin This Week

Bitcoin (BTC) will set a crunch peak at $70,000 during the monthly close until July.

In what promises to be a bullish few days for BTC price action, bulls are trying to regain lost support at key psychological levels.

Can they succeed? That's the question on everyone's lips as Bitcoin returns to a price point it hasn't seen in nearly two months.

The weekly close did not disappoint, saving the market from the “red” candle, but continued motivation is now necessary.

On paper, the situation looks promising – miners are recovering, macroeconomic signals are increasing risk assets and traders are playing on the tail end of Bitcoin's post-halving retracement.

That said, there is scope for flash volatility – the US Federal Reserve will decide on interest rate changes this week, and Chairman Jerome Powell's press comments can move markets instantly.

US unemployment data will hit at the end of the week, providing a final window for erratic crypto price movements.

Cointelegraph takes a closer look at these topics as BTC/USD puts up a crucial test of the last resistance before all-time highs.

Bitcoin returns to the grill to the last BTC price resistance

Bitcoin bulls got a last-minute reprieve as the one-week candle moved from red to green.

At around $68,265 on Bistamp, according to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, Bitcoin ended a rough weekend with further gains in the Asian trading session on July 29.

As a result, new multi-week highs have come, with BTC/USD reaching $69,848 for the first time since June 10.

Unsurprisingly, traders are in a positive mood as Bitcoin nears key resistance below March all-time highs.

In one of his recent articles on X, noted trader Jelle said, “In every halving event, Bitcoin goes through a two-month price action.

“Once that phase ends, the real bull market begins. This time will probably be no different.”

Meanwhile, the resistance is tough – tracking source CoinGlass data shows it is close to $70,400 centered on demand at the time of writing. According to Cointelegraph, billions of dollars of shorts are about to be liquidated and prices should rise quickly.

A key feature of recent days has been US presidential candidate Donald Trump's speech at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Tennessee.

Trump, along with rival Robert Kennedy Jr., pledged to turn the 200,000 BTC seized by the US government into a strategic reserve if elected.

While the issue was already being discussed, Trump's confirmation did little to change BTC's price action on its own, which instead fell in the following hours.

But for trader Daan, crypto trading is a matter of time. In his latest X content, he suggested that the “real move” in BTC/USD could only begin now.

“Rumours started last week that Trump was going to announce a strategic Bitcoin stockpile. At the time, $BTC was trading mostly flat, while stocks took a big hit.

“Usually, BTC would have traded significantly higher during periods of weakness like this in the general markets. But it didn't, which I think largely contributed to this narrative. As a result, we probably traded 5-10 percent higher than we ‘should have'.”

The FOMC week begins with the US debt chapter.

As the U.S. national debt hits $35 trillion for the first time in history, the power to move crypto markets is wide open this week with Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.

The press conference that follows the latest Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) interest rate decision can determine long-term prospects for economic policy through tone alone.

That said, markets will see few surprises from the decision itself – no rate cuts are expected until the next FOMC meeting in September.

The latest estimates from CME Group's FedWatch Tool put the odds of a hold this month at nearly 96 percent. On the contrary, for September, they gave their full value in a certain way.

Those reductions are a key focus for crypto and risk-asset traders, as their presence should boost overall investment flows.

This week, however, the Fed is not alone – US unemployment claims will follow the FOMC, which will be more expansive for sudden crypto market movements.

“Volatility came back a week ago,” summarized trading input Kobeisi's letter in the X thread.

“We have economic data, earnings and the July Fed meeting at the same time this week.”

Commenting on the upcoming macro week, prominent trader CrypNuevo warned Powell to play it safe and avoid any bearish commitments.

“I guess it's one thing: ‘When we get inflation back to 2%, we'll cut rates, and we'll have to be informed about that. We'll have to see the data coming from the next 2 months,'” he told X followers over the weekend.

“If so, markets may experience volatility due to investor frustration.”

As such, BTC/USD may follow post-FOMC, with high-term analysis still calling for a retest of liquidity at all-time highs.

“Those highs haven't been hit for a while, creating an OI gap and accumulating a lot of liquidity in HTF,” Crip Novo added, citing open interest and liquidity positions.

The problem of Bitcoin mining is set to new heights

Bitcoin Network Fundamentals wastes no time in showing which side of this week's bull/bear war mines are on.

The latest estimates from resource tracker BTC.com calculate that Bitcoin mining difficulty will hit new all-time highs on July 31st.

These come with a massive 8% difficulty increase if realized, but this depends on miners' cost effectiveness.

That increase follows a 3.2% increase from two weeks ago and would put it at $88.61 trillion.

As Cointelegraph reports, a mining renaissance has been on the cards for some time, confirmed by both Hashrate and the associated Hash Ribbon indicator, which is the end of the “capitulation” phase of miners after the halving.

The latest raw data from Manning Pulsestats continues to show the hashrate spiraling below its all-time highs – currently at 665 exahashes per second (EH/s) at the time of writing.

Be aware that BTC miners are selling more and more

Analyzing the overall profitability of the mining sphere, however, on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant warned that it is still early days for a rebound.

The Mining Area Index (MPI), promoter XBTManager pointed out, remains at a “very low level”.

“This will add some selling pressure to existing structures but not total selling pressure,” he wrote in one of CryptoQuant's Quicktake blog posts.

XBTManager appeared more concerned that BTC was leaving well-known mining wallets, suggesting that selling will continue at current price levels, rather than slowing down.

“After the $53,000 support level, the miner continues to rise,” he explained.

“Bitcoin has been observed leaving mining wallets at current price levels, which may create selling pressure. A similar example was seen on May 21.”

That day coincided with a trip above $71,000 for BTC/USD, a level that reached a local high before hitting a low of $53,000 in early July.

Sentiment calls for Q3 BTC all-time high price

The Crypto Fear and Greed Index has rebounded to levels not seen since early June.

Related: How High Can BTC Price Go After Trump's Bullish Bitcoin Speech?

A well-known crypto market sentiment indicator is on the verge of returning to “extremely greedy”, something to be expected as Bitcoin clears the final hurdles before gaining value.

Fear and Greed measured 74/100 on July 28, marking a massive 50-point increase in two weeks.

Cointelegraph reported over the weekend that bullishness among crypto traders is not only the highest in weeks, but in the 16 months since the bull market began.

Last week, data aggregator Sentiment released an X survey that asked followers if they thought bitcoin would return to its record high of $73,800 from March.

Most respondents estimated that this would be by the end of October.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and business activity involves risk, and readers should do their own research when making a decision.