Bitcoin: Has the bull market faded?

2021 has proven itself to be quite a promising year for Bitcoin, with its price action on the charts enabling it to register new ATHs. However, over the past 7 days, the bullish momentum has faded, with Bitcoin retracing all way from around $41k to where it stood at press time ($32,600).

However, does the reversal signal the end of the bull run or the start of a wider scale correction akin to what happened in January 2018? Or, as most traders would have it, is Bitcoin’s price finally stabilizing above its previous ATH and maintaining much of the gains it raked up since December 2020?

Source: Santiment

Interestingly, Bitcoin’s social volume metric can help elaborate on what happened, with the world’s largest cryptocurrency enduring a price correction amounting to close to 10 percent.

Santiment’s data showed that as Bitcoin fell to $31.1k, its social volume – a metric that helps traders determine the market sentiment and where the price will head in the short-term – increased and registered a 6-day high. Given the increased demand for Bitcoin over the past few months, from both retail and institutions, it wasn’t much of a surprise that many saw the dip in price as an interesting buying opportunity.

Source: Santiment

On the other hand, there have been certain caveats to Bitcoin’s positive sentiment. What was noticed according to the data provider was that there was a sudden surge in negative commentary around Bitcoin. While a major share of the market seemed to have its faith in Bitcoin unshaken, Santiment’s data also hinted at the fact that a bigger price correction cannot be overlooked for the king coin. While it is unlikely that a drop to its November 2020 valuation is going to happen, a further dip that takes Bitcoin’s price below $30k cannot be discounted.

However, there are still strong bullish signs that one needs to consider before coming to any substantial conclusions regarding Bitcoin’s fortunes in the coming weeks and months.

Hodlers have traditionally played a key role when it comes to Bitcoin maintaining its price and securing significant returns for its investors. According to Glassnode’s Liquid Supply Change charts for Bitcoin, the crypto’s price continues to be fairly secure, with the same revealing that a large-scale dip on the charts looked quite unlikely.

Source: Glassnode

According to the data provided, Bitcoin is seeing the largest depletion of liquidity in a few years, with a majority of the Bitcoin being moved from exchanges into non-exchange entities that are to be hodled for long periods of time. This is a very important aspect of Bitcoin’s 2021 price action and can back up the argument that Bitcoin’s price is going to hold its ground without losing much to the bears in the coming weeks.

In the past month alone, a whopping 270,000 Bitcoins have moved to entities considered HODLers. With the backing of large accounts that continue to hodl, Bitcoin may see occasional dips and corrections, but the bullish market momentum is likely to remain and help stabilize the coin’s price.