Trading Moment: If BTC can hold above 73,000, it may surge towards 80,000; next week will see a flurry of earnings reports from tech giants.

Daily market data review and trend analysis, produced by PANews.

Macro Market

Wall Street is caught in a tug-of-war between fear and greed, with all three major stock indexes closing lower . The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 179.71 points (-0.36%) to 49,310.32, the S&P 500 dropped 29.50 points (-0.41%) to 7,108.40, and the Nasdaq Composite plunged 219.06 points (-0.89%) to 24,438.50. A pervasive fear that the US stock market may be nearing the "top of a bubble" has gripped the market, with investors increasingly ignoring risks driven by FOMO (fear of missing out).

Geopolitically, Trump announced a three-week extension of the ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel, stating that he was "not in a hurry" to reach an agreement with Iran, and even jokingly remarked that insider trading in the prediction market made "the whole world a bit like a casino." Meanwhile, Iranian President Pezechzian and Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf jointly denied internal divisions, emphasizing that the focus of negotiations had shifted from the nuclear issue to a complete ceasefire; and the US Department of Defense planned to hold a press conference at 8 p.m. tonight regarding Operation Epic Fury.

AI and the Stock Market

On April 23, US software stocks experienced a "Black Thursday." Despite some companies exceeding earnings expectations, their share prices plummeted under the shadow of the "SaaS doomsday" narrative. ServiceNow and IBM saw their share prices plunge 18% and 9% respectively due to delays in Middle East contracts and slowing revenue, with year-to-date declines of 40% and 21%. Oracle, Palantir, Salesforce, Workday, and Adobe all saw their share prices fall by 6%-9%, while the iShares Extended Technology Software ETF plunged 6% in a single day, with a cumulative six-month decline of 27%.

Market concerns are running high that AI models like Anthropic and OpenAI could disrupt the traditional per-user software business model. Design software Figma fell nearly 10% on Thursday after Anthropic launched a competitor, Claude Design, bringing its year-to-date decline to 54%. Despite attempts by Atlassian's CEO and analysts to reassure the market, Atlassian's stock price still fell 8.63%, bringing its year-to-date decline to 58%. Next Thursday (April 30th), earnings reports from Google, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta, followed by results from Cloudflare and Datadog, will be crucial in determining whether this pessimistic narrative can be reversed.

The semiconductor sector bucked the trend and rose, driven by demand for computing power. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose for 17 consecutive days , breaking through 10,000 points. Texas Instruments surged 19.43% in a single day, marking its largest single-day gain in 20 years. Intel's Q1 revenue was $13.6 billion (up 7% year-on-year), and its Q2 guidance of $14.3 billion exceeded expectations, causing its stock price to soar more than 20% in after-hours trading.

The surge in demand for AI computing power has also triggered a wave of layoffs at Silicon Valley giants. Meta announced a 10% reduction in its workforce (approximately 8,000 people) in May, causing its stock price to fall by 2.31%; Microsoft launched its first large-scale voluntary retirement plan in 51 years, causing its stock price to drop by nearly 4%; Snap and Block also followed suit with layoffs of 16% and 40%, respectively.

Bitcoin price

After a strong breakout above $79,000 on Wednesday, Bitcoin encountered strong resistance at the psychological level of $80,000 and is currently consolidating around $78,000. Institutional buying remains the core driver, with net inflows of $1.9 billion for seven consecutive days. Morgan Stanley's newly launched MSBT ETF has attracted over $153 million in two weeks. Meanwhile, BTC reserves on Binance have fallen to a low of 618,300, with long-term holders adding approximately 130,000 BTC in the past 30 days, indicating a rapid concentration of holdings among those with strong conviction. However, the total open interest across the network is a staggering 775,000 BTC, and funding rates are unusually negative, suggesting strong potential for a short squeeze. Furthermore, Deribit data shows that approximately $8.47 billion worth of BTC options are expiring today, with a maximum pain point price of $72,000.

Some analysts believe that the resistance at the $80,000 mark may be a signal of heavy selling pressure above. The recent one-sided rise lacks a deep correction and may trigger a larger adjustment. If Bitcoin can hold the key support level of $72,000-$75,000, the price is expected to break through $80,000.

Bearish view

The bears believe that Bitcoin's current rally lacks liquidity support, and the $80,000 level could trigger a deep correction.

Ted: The bottoms of 2024 and 2025 both broke below the previous lows, which hasn't happened since February of this year, so BTC is expected to fall to $60,000 to form a true bottom.
Killa: I refuse to believe that $60,000 is the bottom of this cycle. Historical cycles suggest that breaking the previous low in the next few months is the more reasonable scenario.
CryptoBullet: The current market is in the X-wave rebound of a bear market WXY structure. The final wave of decline (Y-wave) is expected to take the price to $40,000 and bottom out in September or October 2026.
Minga: The step-like rise this month has lacked substantial liquidity sweeps. Such a trend usually ends with an elevator-like plunge, with the untouched liquidity below remaining the ultimate target.

bullish view

The bulls firmly believe that the exit of retail investors and the frenzied buying by institutions have completed the solid construction of the bottom, and breaking through historical resistance is only a matter of time.

MN Fund founder: As long as the $73,000-$75,000 support level holds, Bitcoin is expected to continue its upward trend in the next 1-2 weeks, targeting $85,000-$88,000.
Ali Charts: The Sharpe ratio has rebounded strongly, and the proportion of short-term holders has fallen below the historical extreme of 7%, with funds accelerating their flow into the derivatives market; as long as the support level of $73,700 is held, the target of $96,000 is just around the corner.
Santiment: Market sentiment has shifted from extreme pessimism to super FOMO. Although there is resistance at $80,000, a break above this level will bring back a massive influx of both new and experienced traders.
Tryrex: The bears are slowly realizing their failure, and Bitcoin is building momentum for a major breakout. $84,000 will arrive sooner than anyone expects.
Daan Crypto Trades: As long as the bulls can strongly push through the $80,000 area, the reversal of the major cycle will be fully confirmed, with $72,000 and $65,000 forming a solid defense line below.
Scient: Unless the daily close falls below $76,000, it won't complicate the market. We will continue to look for long opportunities. The EMA resistance at the lower $80,000 level is like a magnet.
Zord: The short-selling liquidation towards $80,000 is largely complete, and there is a lack of liquidation targets up to $91,000. The market may accumulate fuel there before shooting directly towards $93,000.

Key data (as of 13:00 HKT on April 24)

(Data source: Coinank, Upbit, SoSoValue, CryptoBubbles)

Bitcoin ETF: +$223 million, marking the 7th consecutive day of net inflows.
Ethereum ETF: -$75.936 million, ending a 10-day streak of net inflows.
SOL ETF: +7.3314 million USD
XRP ETF: $3.8857 million
Fear of Greed Index: 39 (Fear)
Upbit 24-hour trading volume rankings: SPR, CHIP, KAT, BTC, ETH
Sector Performance: The crypto sector showed mixed performance, with the meme sector rising 1.23% and ETH slightly declining.

24-hour liquidation data: A total of 92,545 people worldwide were liquidated, with a total liquidation amount of $375 million, including $176 million in BTC liquidations, $84.49 million in ETH liquidations, and $12.47 million in RAVE liquidations.

Today's Outlook

Trump will host a luncheon for Trump token holders at Mar-a-Lago on April 25.
WBTC: Cross-chain DVN configuration upgrade expected to be completed by April 26th.
The U.S. Department of Defense will hold a press conference at 8 p.m. on April 24.
Monad (MON) will unlock approximately 170 million tokens, worth about $5.5 million, on April 24.
Initia (INIT) will unlock approximately 82.94 million tokens, worth about $7.8 million, on April 24.
SoSoValue (SOSO) will unlock approximately 13.33 million tokens, worth about $5.5 million, on April 24.
Plasma (XPL) will unlock approximately 88.89 million tokens on April 25, worth approximately $9.4 million.
Humanity (H) will unlock approximately 105 million tokens, worth approximately $10.8 million, on April 25.

The top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization with the largest gains today are: Stable up 19.6%, Zcash up 8.2%, Aerodrome Finance up 5.4%, Algorand up 3.6%, and DeXe up 3.6%.