Bitcoin Falls Below $79,000 After Rejection at Key Resistance Level
Just one day after Bitcoin moved above $82,000 following progress on the Clarity Act, the market sharply reversed direction and pushed the price back below $79,000.
Summary:
- Bitcoin fell back below $79,000.
- The price was stopped just below the 200 SMA.
- The expiration of $2.63 billion in options intensified the move.
- RSI is beginning to show weakening momentum.
- The market is waiting for a new catalyst for a breakout higher.
The move may look sudden, but the chart shows the reversal did not happen randomly.
Bitcoin started the day at $81,090, climbed above $81,600, and then gradually lost momentum until the price dropped to $78,980 at the time of writing. Within a single day, the market moved through a range of more than $3,000, highlighting how sensitive price action remains around the current technical levels.
The first reason for the reversal is the 200-day Simple Moving Average (SMA). This is a line showing Bitcoin’s average price over the last 200 days and is often watched by traders and institutional participants as an important boundary between a stronger bullish trend and a more cautious market environment.
At the moment, the 200 SMA sits around $81,956, while today’s peak at $81,664 stopped only about $292 below it. That is far too close to be considered a coincidence. More likely, the price reached one of the most important resistance levels on the daily chart, and sellers immediately used the area to push the market lower, marking another failed attempt by Bitcoin to convincingly break above the 200 SMA.
Still, the picture is not entirely negative. The 50 SMA around $74,965 and the 100 SMA around $71,925 remain below the current price, meaning the recovery structure from the February lows has not yet been broken. For now, the problem is more that Bitcoin cannot break through the most important upper boundary, rather than the entire trend already turning bearish.
Options Added Additional Pressure
The second reason behind the sharp decline comes from the options market. Data from Deribit shows that crypto options worth around $2.63 billion expired today at 08:00 UTC, with approximately $2.01 billion tied to Bitcoin.
Options are contracts that give investors the right to buy or sell an asset at a predetermined price. When a large number of such contracts expire on the same day, the market often becomes more tense because many participants close positions, rebalance risk, or attempt to defend certain price levels.
An important term here is “max pain.” This is the price at which the largest number of option contracts lose value upon expiration. Put simply, it is an area around which the market often starts moving before expiration because that is where the greatest number of participants end up without profit from their contracts.
For Bitcoin, the max pain level was around $80,000. Interestingly, the price first moved above it and then dropped below it to around $78,984. As a result, nearly the entire day’s movement formed around this zone.
The data shows that a large portion of the expiring positions had been positioned for price appreciation. After expiration, part of the support that had been helping the upward move disappeared. At that point, the spot market began determining direction on its own, and in this case, pressure shifted downward.
RSI Shows Momentum Is Weakening
Another signal comes from the RSI on the daily chart. RSI is an indicator that measures the strength and speed of price movement. When its value is above 50, the market usually maintains positive momentum. When it begins falling toward or below 50, it often signals that buyers are losing some control.
At the moment, RSI is around 51.77, while its average value stands at 62.41. When RSI remains this far below its average, it suggests that the short-term strength behind the upward movement is already fading.
The gap between RSI and its signal line is more than 10 points, which is the widest divergence during the recovery throughout April and May. This does not automatically mean another major decline is coming, but it does show the market no longer appears as strong as it did during the previous breakout attempt.
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The 50 level remains critical. If RSI falls below it, that would be the first more serious signal that the momentum from the recovery after the February lows is beginning to run out.
What Needs to Happen Next
The next few days will likely determine whether today’s decline was only a temporary reaction around the options expiration or the beginning of a more significant cooling phase.
The first positive signal would be a quick recovery back above $80,000. If Bitcoin manages to reclaim this zone and RSI starts climbing back above its signal line, the market will likely interpret the decline as a short-term move driven mainly by the options expiration and rejection at the 200 SMA.
The stronger signal, however, remains a daily close above the 200 SMA.
The information presented in this article is intended for informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as financial, investment, or trading advice. Coinspress.com does not promote or advocate for any particular investment strategy, asset, or cryptocurrency project. Cryptocurrency markets are highly volatile and unpredictable – always perform your own research and seek guidance from a qualified financial professional before making any investment decisions.
Kosta Gushterov
Reporter at CoinsPress
Kosta has reported on cryptocurrency markets and blockchain infrastructure since 2020, bringing over six years of hands-on experience in the crypto industry built through daily tracking of markets, trends, and emerging blockchain developments. Specializing in Bitcoin on-chain analysis, institutional ETF flows, and digital asset price action, his work has been cited by other news agencies and consistently covers market developments with a focus on data-driven reporting across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP. Over the years, Kosta has contributed to multiple crypto media outlets in different regions, authoring over 6,000 articles across the sector. His reporting spans cryptocurrency markets and the broader fintech industry, tracking not only price action but also the technological and regulatory forces shaping the ecosystem. To support his analysis, Kosta actively leverages on-chain data and metrics from leading platforms such as Santiment, Glassnode, and CryptoQuant, enabling deeper, evidence-based market insights. He believes in the power of transparency and the data that underpins the blockchain ecosystem. His academic background in Marketing Management from Denmark further complements his analytical approach, adding a strong understanding of communication strategy and content positioning to his work.
