Bitcoin is showing weakness as BTC price trades in a tight range, the number one crypto by market cap saw a small uptick in volatility during today’s trading session. However, the price action was smothered by poor performance in traditional equities. At the time of writing, BTC price trades at $19,00 with a 4% loss in the last 24 hours and a 3% loss over the past week. As Bitcoin trends lower into support, the momentum indicator follows suggesting there is little conviction to resume bullish momentum.

BTC Price Liquidity Trends To The Downside As Bitcoin Loses $19,000 Levels

In the coming two weeks, the crypto market will go through a major milestone with Ethereum’s “Merge”. The second crypto by market cap will complete its transition to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus. As a result, ETH price has been outperforming BTC price.

“The Merge” is scheduled for mainnet deployment between September 13^th to 15^th, this event is bound to bring volatility into the market. Today, Ethereum core developers announced the successful implementation of the “Bellatrix” update.

A few hours later, the BTC price broke below a critical support zone and trendline created since the August bullish price action. Data from Material Indicators shows liquidity in the orderbook for crypto exchange Binance has been getting thick to the downside. As the price of Bitcoin trends lower, liquidity followed and sits near the cryptocurrency’s yearly lows between $17,600 to $18,000. In the meantime, all investors class have been selling into the price action, from retail to large investors.

If today is any indicator of what traders should expect from “The Merge”, and bulls can support BTC price’s current levels, the cryptocurrency might take another leg down into the pool of bids shown in the chart above. Next critical support levels sit at $17,000 and $16,000. For a deeper dive into “The Merge” and its potential implications for the price of Ethereum, check out the analysis from our Editorial Director Tony Spilotro.

Institutions Go Short, BTC Price Doom To Re-Test Yearly Lows?

The second major catalyst for the crypto market will take place during “The Merge”, the U.S. will publish its most recent Consumer Price Index (CPI) that will provide more clues into the country’s inflation. As NewsBTC has been reporting, the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) has been aggressively trying to keep inflation in check by hiking interest rates.

As a consequence, risk-on markets have been trending lower. If the September 12^th CPI print maintains its July trend to the downside, the Fed might hint at some relief on its monetary policy. This could allow the BTC price and other cryptocurrencies to regain their bullish momentum.

In a recent report trading desk QCP Capital noted a reduction of long positions (blue line in the chart below) by institutions as they increase their shorts (purple line below). This hints at what these entities expect for the short term. The trading desk :

The showdown between macroeconomic conditions and market positioning will come as soon as September determining whether bearish macro forces play out as the market hopes, or whether we are setting ourselves up for a squeeze of historic proportions.