Bitcoin (BTC) Price Needs to Crack $97.3K as It Preserves Competitive Q4 Returns

Bitcoin (BTC) traded near $95,000 into the Dec. 29 weekly close as liquidity “games” began to show across exchange order books.

Bitcoin (BTC) price remained rangebound on Dec. 31 as liquidity “games” began to show across exchange order books.

BTC/USD 1-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Analysis says BTC price needs to crack $97,300

After showing signs of cracking support into the week's final Wall Street trading session, BTC price action flattened over the weekend.

Wedged in a tight range, BTC/USD provided little inspiration for bulls, and order book liquidity analysis led market observers to stay cautious.

Commenting on lower-timeframe price performance, trading resource Material Indicators flagged that two of its proprietary trading tools were showing “red.”

“FireCharts shows a new $86M bid ladder is pushing BTC price up from the lows, but a new (red) signal from the Trend Precognition A1 algo on the D chart, which follows back to back (red signals) from the A2+ algo is an indication that price isn't likely to climb higher than yesterday's high, at least not before today's D candle close,” it wrote in a post on X.

BTC/USD 1-day chart. Source: Material Indicators/X

The Binance BTC/USDT pair also had popular trader Skew in two minds about what might happen next.

A chart uploaded to X showed buy liquidity shifting higher toward spot price — potentially indicating upside should its owner leave it in place.

“I have been watching these limit bids throughout today, which have conveniently just moved higher towards price,” Skew explained in part of accompanying commentary.

BTC/USD 15-minute chart. Source: Skew/X

Skew added that he was “expecting more of these games to [be] played going into yearly open.”

Bitcoin preserves competitive Q4 returns

At around $95,000, Bitcoin was still down just 1.25% in December at the time of writing.

Related: Bitcoin 'head and shoulders' pattern risks $80K BTC price dip — Analyst

Data from monitoring resource CoinGlass put Q4 upside at over 50%, almost equalling its 2023 performance.

BTC/USD quarterly returns (screenshot). Source: CoinGlass

Despite various BTC price predictions calling for new lows before continuation of the bull market, longtime market participants still saw the better portion of gains yet to come.

Among them was popular trader Titan of Crypto, who uploaded a chart to X that he described as Bitcoin's “roadmap” for 2025.

It showed Wyckoff analysis calling for the ascent to macro highs to continue before a distribution phase kicks in.

BTC/USD 1-day chart with Wyckoff schematic. Source: Titan of Crypto/X