Bitcoin flashes a bullish golden cross signal. Here's what comes next.
The golden cross — a rare buy signal bitcoin bulls have been waiting for — has flashed this week.
The world's largest cryptocurrency flashed a golden cross on Tuesday. It's a bullish pattern watched by technical analysts that occurs when an asset's 50-day moving average crosses above its 200-day moving average.
It's the first golden cross bitcoin has flashed in over a year, with the last signal appearing in May 2025, according to an analysis of Bespoke Investment.
The golden cross has historically preceded further upside in an asset's price, which is exactly what investors struggling through bitcoin's brutal nine-month bear market have been waiting for. The crypto shed more than half of its value from its October 2025 peak through its low of around $59,100 this summer.
"Such a signal is typically followed by accelerated growth," Kuptsikevich wrote Alex Kuptsikevich, the chief market analyst at FxPro, wrote of the golden cross in a note on Wednesday.
Paul Meeks, the head of technology research at Freedom Capital Markets, said he believed the rally that triggered bitcoin's golden cross was being driven by four main factors:
The coin has been oversold.Bitcoin was likely undervalued in the depths of its latest winter, meaning the rally is being partly driven by a natural "bounce back," Meeks told Business Insider in a call. Bitcoin traded around $79,300 on Wednesday, up 34% since the start of July. The token is still down 58% from its all-time high of around $126,000.
Regulatory optimism. Bitcoin got a big boost after President Donald Trump called on US lawmakers to pass the CLARITY Act at the White House's crypto summit last month. The landmark bill would establish a regulatory framework for digital assets, and Trump has long been viewed by investors as a crypto-friendly president.
Michael Saylor's Strategy hasn't hurt the market with its bitcoin sales. Strategy, the bitcoin treasury that holds around 4% of the total bitcoin supply, sold some of its holdings this summer. Investors have long worried that Strategy's sales could impact the price of bitcoin, but its sales so far haven't really moved the needle, Meeks said, adding to the overall optimism.
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High leverage. Bitcoin's price is also being partly driven by high leverage, Meeks said. Open interest in bitcoin, a measure of the value of outstanding unsettled derivative contracts, is $53.3 billion, the 82nd percentile over the last 90 days. By comparison, funding ranks at the 29th percentile, according to an analysis by CoinMarketCap.
"That is a large amount of leverage being held cheaply. Positioning is elevated, but traders are not paying up for it—the market is waiting for a catalyst rather than chasing one," Alice Liu, the head of research at CoinMarketCap, wrote in a note on Wednesday.
What comes next
There are a few technical levels for bitcoin investors should be eyeing next, Meeks said.
The first is seeing whether bitcoin meaningfully breaks above the $80,000 mark, a technical resistance level the crypto has struggled to overcome. Bitcoin briefly crossed $80,000 this weekend before dipping back below the threshold.
Meeks said he would be looking to see if bitcoin surpassed the $80,000 mark by at least 5% to confirm that a meaningful bullish uptrend was in place.
Bitcoin passing $90,000 would be the next "real test," Meeks said, adding that he believed the crypto rising back to record-highs was out of the question for now, from a technical perspective.
Katie Stockton, a top technical strategist and the managing partner at Fairlead Strategies, said she was eyeing $83,000 to $84,000 as the next key resistance level, pointing to bitcoin's May high and several other technical indicators.
"We think it's an important breakout because it shows a reaction to what was a long-term oversold condition. We think that it could be suggesting that there is a cyclical reversal underway," Stockton told BI.
FxPro's Kuptsikevich said a stronger uptrend in bitcoin was underway, though extending the token's rally could take time.
"High interest rates are currently limiting the narrative's potential," he wrote.
The path forward for bitcoin will likely be determined by whether institutional demand holds up and whether Treasury yields stabilize at their current levels, Naeem Aslam, the chief investment officer at Zaye Capital Markets, wrote in a note. Elevated bond yields can weigh on bitcoin's price, as they make interest-bearing and dollar-denominated assets more attractive as a store of wealth.
"If ETF inflows remain strong and inflation pressure cools enough to reduce expectations for tighter policy, Bitcoin could reclaim the $80,000 level and rebuild momentum," Aslam said.
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