difficulty

Bitcoin bulls have little to celebrate as BTC price action retraces more hard-won February gains.

Bitcoin (BTC) threatened to ditch $23,000 as support on Feb. 25 as an ongoing price correction strengthened into the weekend.

BTC price support inches lower

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD attempting to make a decision on the fate of the $23,000 mark on the day.

The pair had lost almost $1,000 on Feb. 24, ending the week in a limp position along with United States equities while the dollar gained.

With “out-of-hours” trading now in place until Monday, chances for thinner liquidity to spark more pronounced moves heightened.

Analyzing the state of the Binance order book, monitoring resource Material Indicators confirmed the continued existence of a major line of bid support informally known as the “Notorious B.I.D.” and “great wall.”

Previously higher up, the owners of the liquidity had moved it lower during the week.

“If the Notorious B.I.D. wall at $22,250 holds, I expect it to be part of the weekend whale games. I would not be trying to catch knives,” Material Indicators commented.

“Expect BTC to retest lows or potentially move to price discovery before a legit Bull Market Breakout.”

Turning to the upcoming weekly close, trader and analyst Rekt Capital meanwhile delineated $23,300 as important to hold to protect bulls' interests.

"Weekly retest of the confluent area that is the Lower High and Monthly Range High resistance is now in progress," he wrote in a Twitter update.

"Price needs to hold here for the retest to be successful. However, Weekly Close below this area would be a bearish sign."

An additional post argued that the monthly close would be a key determining factor in the overall trend, this also being just days away.

A failed #BTC Weekly retest of ~$23400 as support would mean that price remains inside the Monthly Macro Range

Let's see how the Monthly Closes

1M Close above ~$23400 -> likely range breakout

1M Close below -> $BTC stays in & range & could dip lower in range#Crypto #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/xTAqH7pVlm

— Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) February 24, 2023

Bitcoin difficulty, hash rate stay the course

Others showed signs of frustration that Bitcoin was unable to crack $25,000 and reckon with more substantial long-term resistance levels above it.

Related: Bitcoin 2024 halving will be its ‘most important’ — Interview with Charles Edwards

"Pretty amazing that we couldn't just get an exit pump above 25K for god-tier short entry," Crypto Chase summarized.

"Everyone bullish and euphoric and price just dumps off most obvious resistance.. such a shame. Maybe still get it later on.. idk. Crypto just don't trade like it used to tbh."

A subsequent update highlighted $22,700 as a downside level to preserve for another run at $25,000.

$BTC

Gonna want to see 22.7K hold if a real push above 25K for liquidity is still in the cards. Confluence of Daily S/R + 0.618 fib of current leg. pic.twitter.com/ZHShTi9SzT

— Crypto Chase (@Crypto_Chase) February 24, 2023

A point of optimism meanwhile came in the form of Bitcoin network fundamentals, with difficulty increasing 9.95% in its latest automated readjustment — the most since mid-January.

As Cointelegraph reported, both difficulty and hash rate continue to surge to new record levels despite the slowdown in price recovery.

"Bitcoin mining became 10% more difficult last night," Maartunn, a contributing analyst to on-chain data platform CryptoQuant, responded.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors’ alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.