Bitcoin (BTC) almost hit new all-time highs into March 5 as volatility swiftly liquidated late trades.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC price trajectory coming within inches of $69,000.
Despite daily gains of $5,000, the psychological importance of the highs became immediately evident, and bulls were unable to push through.
A subsequent reversal took the market back to the $66,000 area.
Hours later, flash volatility saw BTC/USD drop $2,000 in three minutes — an event that disposed of around $20 million in long positions, per data from monitoring resource CoinGlass.
This, in turn, made a dent in record-high open interest, which nonetheless quickly rebounded to circle $31 billion at the time of writing.
In a grim repetition of events from a week ago — one that was even predicted by some — the largest United States crypot exchange, Coinbase, suffered another outage.
As before, customer balances began showing as zero, and criticism grew.
“The 2021 Bitcoin bull run dwarfs this bull run in terms of leverage, speculation and retail,” James Van Straten, research and data analyst at crypto insights firm CryptoSlate, wrote in part of a response on X (formerly Twitter).
Van Straten suggested that Coinbase had the technical ability to “handle the load” and that other factors were at play behind the scenes.
Coinbase’s support account on X confirmed that the issue had been resolved.
“We have issued a fix which remediated the display issue impacting customer account balances and latency across http://Coinbase.com,” it stated.
Discussing whether Bitcoin could break through the final hurdle before price discovery, popular market participants appeared confident.
Related: Why are BTC traders bearish above $64K? 5 things to know in Bitcoin this week
Trader Kaleo likened the mood to the 2020 breakout, which crushed old $20,000 all-time highs in place since 2017.
“This pump has the same feel as December of 2020 when Bitcoin was approaching ATHs at $20K, and didn’t look back after it broke above it,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Fellow trader Jelle, meanwhile, shrugged off the idea that $69,000 would stay in place and mark a “triple top” pattern for BTC/USD.
A further post predicted a fresh surge for altcoins once Bitcoin breaks its all-time high — again in line with historical precedent.
“History is repeating in front of your very eyes, and you’re looking for bearish signs,” Jelle commented.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.