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(Kitco News) – The crypto market started the week flat following the long holiday weekend as the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) decision to delay ruling on seven separate spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETF) led to a plunge in momentum, leaving traders with little to be excited about in the near future.

Stocks trended lower after the latest economic data from China showed that the world’s second-largest economy continues to struggle, with the country’s services activity in August falling to its lowest level in eight months. At the market close, the S&P, Dow, and Nasdaq all finished lower, down 0.42%, 0.56%, and 0.08%, respectively.

Data provided by TradingView shows that Bitcoin’s price continues to compress, trading in a narrow range between $25,555 and $25,888 on Tuesday, prompting analysts to warn that a breakout is imminent, though which direction is a matter of intense debate.

BTC/USD Chart by TradingView

Kitco senior technical analyst Jim Wyckoff noted that “September Bitcoin futures prices were weaker in early U.S. trading Tuesday, after posting losses Monday and hitting a 5.5-month low.”

Bitcoin futures 1-day chart. Source: Kitco

“Bears have the firm near-term technical advantage,” Wyckoff said. “A price downtrend line is in place on the daily chart to suggest more sideways-to-lower price action in the near term.”

Addressing last week’s spike in volatility that followed the positive ruling for Grayscale in its lawsuit against the SEC, MN Trading analyst Gunter Lackmann noted “The short-lived uptick in BTC price didn’t make it quite to the 50% retracement level.”

BTC/USD 1-day chart. Source: MN Trading

“On the bright side, the order block is still holding support,” Lackmann said. “I remain cautiously bullish, especially with the RSI creeping up slowly, at least until the $24,770.50 swing low is taken out for good.”

In the near term, Lackmann said, “There are no trade opportunities on the daily timeframe except [a potential] long with an invalidation under the order block and targets of the 50% retracement level and the previous high range of around $30,800 – 31,800.”

According to technical analyst CryptoCon, “Bitcoin remains in the same resistance zone on the RHODL Ratio that has trapped price into sideways price action for up to 8 Months.”

Bitcoin realized HODL rate. Source: Twitter

“The Bitcoin bottom is in with a visit deep into the green zone and pivot outside of it,” CryptoCon said.

After highlighting that Bitcoin has been trapped “inside the confines of this resistance zone for 6 months,” CryptoCon said this is “completely standard in every early cycle development,” and suggested that “Spending the same amount of time in this zone as last cycle gives us new highs and an escape in November.”

Market analyst Crypto Tony sees a similar outlook and posted the following chart on Twitter indicating that BTC could see one final shakeout move lower in November before resuming its bull market climb higher.

$BTC / $USD – Update

I expect this sort of structure over the next few months on #Bitcoin We are missing that final drop IMO and so i will be waiting with capital to buy heavy when it comes pic.twitter.com/y7itKjNBcL

— Crypto Tony (@CryptoTony__) September 5, 2023

Mixed day in the altcoin market

Altcoins traded mixed, with the top 200 tokens evenly split between winners and losers on Tuesday.

Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360

TomiNet (TOMI) led the gainers with an increase of 17.1%, followed by a 15% increase for Centrifuge (CFG) and an 11.3% gain for Akash Network (AKT). API3 saw the largest decline with a loss of 7.1%, while Terra (LUNA) fell 6.7%, and Numeraire (NUM) lost 6.1%.

The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.04 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 48.2%.