Crypto Industry News:

Difficult market conditions continue to affect the Bitcoin ecosystem, with mining difficulty dropping by its highest level since July 2021.

The difficulty adjustment of 7.32% took place on December 6 at block 766,080, marking the sharpest drop in difficulty in over a year. This coincided with a decrease in the average hashrate from 264.18 EH/s to 245.10 EH/s.

Bitcoin mining difficulty automatically adjusts to the amount of hash rate power available on the network, essentially controlling the rate at which new Bitcoin blocks are added to the chain, which is approximately every 10 minutes.

The difficulty changes every 2016 blocks, meaning the last drop in difficulty will last around two weeks. The adjustment can be seen as a relief for Bitcoin miners who have had to endure a turbulent 2022 that has left some operators small and large with no choice but to shut down.

As previously reported, in the third quarter of this year, the increase in the production costs of new BTC coincided with the decrease in the value of this cryptocurrency. Rising energy costs have further impacted miners' margins in the US and Europe, leading to the closure of some operations.

Bitcoin miner revenues fell to two-year lows in late November, exacerbated by poor cryptocurrency market performance and increased computing demands. This eventually led to the capitulation of some mining operations, resulting in a recent drop in hash rate, which accounts for the recent difficulty correction.

Technical Market Outlook:

Bitcoin has been seen testing the local trend line support located around the level of $16,700. So for there was no breakout below the trend line, nevertheless, the momentum remains weak and negative on the H4 time frame chart. The next local technical support is seen at $16,020. There is no indication of the down trend on Bitcoin to terminate or reverse yet, so the next target for bears is seen at the level of $13,563 (2019 high).

Recently BTC/USD spiked up over 12% already as bulls were seen moving towards the next technical resistance located at $17,600. The 38% Fibonacci retracement level of the last wave down is seen at $17,664, so this level might be tested as well (in a form of a spike up etc.).

Weekly Pivot Points:

WR3 - $17,953

WR2 - $17,573

WR1 - $17,420

Weekly Pivot - $17,221

WS1 - $17,068

WS2 - $16,869

WS3 - $16,516

Trading Outlook:

The down trend on the H4, Daily and Weekly time frames continues without any indication of a possible trend termination or reversal. So far every bounce and attempt to rally is being used to sell Bitcoin for a better price by the market participants, so the bearish pressure is still high. The key long term technical support at the psychological level of $20,000 had been violated, the new swing low was made at $15,555 and if this level is violated, then the next long-term target for bulls is seen at $13,712. On the other hand, the gamechanging level for bulls is located at $25,367 and it must be clearly violated for a valid breakout in the long term.