Bitcoin Hits $1,000, Litecoin Lags Behind

Bitcoin hit the $1,000 mark on most Bitcoin exchanges. Prices got as high as $997 on FXOpen before falling back down. It’s little brother is not doing as great. Litecoin prices are up but still below the December 24th high.

Bitcoin hits the Triple Zero

Bitcoin hit the triple zero mark ($1,000) for the first time since December of 2013. Prices peaked around $1,030 – $1,040 on most USD sites and currently remain somewhat above this important figure. On FXOpen we hit a high of $997.50 yesterday and are now sitting just slightly below it at $982 dollars per coin.

Like we mentioned in our previous article, during major bull runs like these, the usual state of affairs is to have the Chinese sites trade at a premium to USD exchanges, with FXOpen at the bottom. FXOpen is lagging the US market by $37 right now. Historically this price gap has been as high as $50 this year. Note that if we start crashing, the Chinese sites usually fall disproportionately more then US exchanges.

On the technical front, the bullish trend is naturally still in place. To end it, the bears will have to push BTC/USD below the $822 swing low (FXOpen). This low corresponded to $840-$850 on most other USD sites. The bar for setting a new downtrend on FXOpen is set a bit lower at $760, below the latest BTC breakout point near $773 dollars. All three trends for bitcoin (short-term, medium-term and long-term) remain bullish.

Litecoin Lags Behind

Litecoin prices are up by 24 cents to $4.33 right now, a move of 5.88 percent. While this is a fair amount, it lags behind bitcoin’s gain of $101 or 11.56 in percentage terms.

Nonetheless, the LTC trend is still up and to end it, prices will have to fall below the $3.95 swing low. For a fresh downtrend the bar is set much lower at the $3.50 round figure. In between these levels we have weaker support at $4.08, $4 and the area around $3.64-$3.68.

On the upside we have weak resistance near $4.50 followed by a much stronger double top near $4.60. Prices peaked here on December 24th and again on January 2nd, only to be strongly rejected both times. A decisive breakout above here could lead to more gains. For LTC/USD the short-term and medium-term trends are bullish but the long-term trend is still neutral.