Trading Moments: BTC may still rise if it holds above 78,500; the CME gap is the market focus; two key levels could trigger billions in liquidation.

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

Macro Market

The prospects for US-Iran peace talks have been clouded again, fueling risk aversion in the market. On Thursday, all three major US stock indexes closed lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.63% to 49,596.97 points, the S&P 500 fell 0.38% to 7,337.11 points, and the Nasdaq Composite fell slightly by 0.13% to 25,806.20 points.

Trading volume of S&P 500 call options hit a new high of $2.6 trillion yesterday. Specifically, nearly 60% of S&P 500 index options yesterday were call options. Bank of America pointed out that the current rise of the S&P 500 is reminiscent of the late 1920s and the dot-com bubble, but the market's pricing of tail risk options is still too low, with a clear divergence from the actual volatility.

Crude oil prices plunged more than 5% intraday yesterday, before rebounding sharply in a V-shaped recovery on news of clashes, ultimately rising slightly to around $100 per barrel. Spot Brent crude even fell below its near-month futures price. Max Layton, head of commodities at Citigroup, stated that oil prices will inevitably fluctuate wildly due to news until a clear agreement is reached.

Furthermore, the offshore yuan broke through 6.80 yesterday, hitting a four-year high, and market bets on an interest rate cut this year have dropped to 20%. Currently, Wall Street is holding its breath awaiting the upcoming non-farm payroll data, which is expected to show an increase of 62,000 jobs. This will be a key anchor point for determining the next macroeconomic direction. Economist David Payne believes that 60,000 to 80,000 new jobs per month are sufficient to maintain the stability of the labor market.

AI and the Stock Market

Legendary trader Paul Tudor Jones has pointed out that this AI bull market may only be halfway through, with a potential upside of 40% in the next 1-2 years. However, he also warned that valuations will enter an extremely frenzied phase.

The chip sector was under pressure on Thursday, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) falling 2.7%. Arm, despite strong earnings expectations, plunged 10% due to concerns about AI chip supply; Intel and AMD also fell by about 3%, while Broadcom and Alphabet closed slightly lower. The software sector recovered, with Datadog's stock surging 31% after raising its full-year earnings forecast, and CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks also rising 8% and 7%, respectively.

After the US stock market closed, Nvidia announced a $210 million investment (purchasing 30 million warrants at $70 per share) to support mining company IREN in building a 5GW AI data center. IREN's stock price surged over 27% in after-hours trading. CoreWeave, a computing infrastructure company, reported a 112% year-over-year revenue increase to $2.078 billion in Q1, with an order backlog of $99.4 billion. However, due to aggressive $6.786 billion in capital expenditures, its net loss widened to $589 million, and its Q2 guidance fell short of expectations, causing its after-hours stock price to plummet by over 10%.

Bitcoin price

After a deep correction, Bitcoin has shown strong recovery momentum, with the price rebounding from a low of $60,000 to $82,800, and is currently fluctuating around the $79,500 mark. On-chain data shows that BTC has successfully broken through the true market average of $78,200 and the short-term holder cost baseline of $79,100. If the bulls can hold this level, the next key resistance level will be the active realized price of $85,200. Market indications suggest that if Bitcoin fills the $84,100 CME gap, it will liquidate $3.4 billion in short positions; if it falls back to $67,100, it could trigger a $17 billion long liquidation.

Although the average net realized profit/loss over 30 days has turned positive to 0.003% of market capitalization, long-term holders have realized daily profit-taking of $180 million and daily losses of $479 million, indicating that selling pressure in the market remains significant. In the options market, 20,000 BTC options expire today, with the highest price target at $79,500 and a notional value of $1.6 billion. Bitfinex analysts point out that perpetual contract funding rates have returned to neutral, and the implied volatility of 35% in the short term suggests a potential short squeeze risk due to short covering.

Bearish view

The core logic of this camp is that the recent rebound is just a bull trap in a bear market, the potential decline in US stocks will drag down BTC, and the break below key levels confirms a false breakout.

Greeny: The 35% rebound from the bottom is exactly the same as the bear market traps of 2018 and 2022. Blindly being bullish is extremely dangerous.
Anabel & LB: A break below $80,000 and $79,600 confirms that the previous rally was merely a liquidity bias, with downside risks pointing towards the $76,000-$74,000 range.
Minga & Astronomer: If the price fails to recover to 84.2k or 80.5k, a short-term top will be established, with the target being the monthly opening price of 76k.
Colin Talks Crypto: The price encountered clear resistance at the 200-day moving average and is preparing to take profits near 84.8k.

bullish view

The bulls firmly believe that the turnover of shares at the bottom has been extremely sufficient, and the continuous inflow of ETFs and the breakthrough of technical indicators are building momentum for a push towards $100,000.

John Bollinger, the creator of the Bollinger Bands indicator, personally went long, pointing out that BTC has completed its first breakout of the upper Bollinger Band in months ($81,549) on the daily chart.
Killa: If Bitcoin can hold above $78,500 (this week's opening price), it may rise further. However, if it falls below this level, we will gradually add to long positions in the $74.7K-$76.3K range, while setting the stop-loss for short positions at $84K.
Murphy: 440,000 BTC have accumulated around $66,000, and the holdings in the $65,000-$78,000 range account for 13.8%, which has formed a more solid bottom structure than the previous cycle.
Tom Lee: As long as BTC closes above $76,000 in May, achieving an extremely rare three-month winning streak, the bear market will be completely over.
Ali Charts: The average cost of new whales is $80,300, and leverage has surged to 0.26 (a new high since 2025), indicating extremely strong market risk appetite.
IT Tech & MikybullCrypto: As long as it breaks through and holds above the $88,000 to $92,000 resistance zone, the $100,000 target will be a sure thing.
Max Trades & ctm_trader: A pullback to 75k-76k presents an excellent opportunity to go long, with the main target being to fill the CME gaps at 78k and 84k.
Aylo: In a bear market, any Bitcoin below $70,000 (the pre-2021 high) has extremely high investment value.

Key data (as of 14:00 HKT, May 8)

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

Bitcoin ETF: -$277 million, the first net outflow after a 5-day period of net inflows.
Ethereum ETF: -$104 million
SOL ETF: +$6.6749 million
Fear of Greed Index: 46 (Neutral)
Upbit 24-hour trading volume rankings: JTO, BTC, B3, XRP, ETH
Sector Performance: The crypto market saw mixed results, with RWA rising 2.1% and SocialFi falling 2.9%.

24-hour liquidation data: A total of 86,151 people worldwide were liquidated, with a total liquidation amount of $269 million, including $85.7 million in BTC liquidations, $59.97 million in ETH liquidations, and $19.31 million in TON liquidations.

Today's Outlook

Binance Alpha will launch on ShareX (SHARE) on May 8th.
Binance will remove 12 spot trading pairs, including AVA/BTC and ENA/BTC, on May 8.
Space and Time (SXT) will unlock 387 million tokens, worth approximately $6.1 million, on May 8th.
US April Unemployment Rate: Previous 4.3%, Expected 4.3% (May 8, 20:30)
US April Non-Farm Payrolls Change (in thousands): Previous: 178,000; Expected: 63,000 (May 8, 20:30)

The top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization with the largest gains today are: Siren up 27.5%, Internet Computer up 10.6%, World Liberty Financial up 8.6%, Ondo up 7.4%, and Venice Token up 6.5%.