Bitcoin price rally to $12K is meaningless until bulls flip it to support

On Tuesday Bitcoin bulls mustered enough strength to push BTC price slightly above the $12K mark, a level not seen since Sept. 1.

Bitcoin's recent price action has been somewhat dislodged from that of equities markets, leading some analysts on crypto Twitter to again call for a 'decoupling' but this all seems a bit premature.

Regardless where one stands on Bitcoin price decoupling from traditional markets, the digital asset remains one of the top performers for 2020, currently up 65.4% year-to-date.

Today's daily high at $12,038 is only $10 away from the previous high on Sept.1 when Bitcoin price formed a tweezer top and corrected 18.5% over the next few days.

Traders have expressed mixed emotions about the price hovering near $12,000 again, especially considering that the last 5 visits to this resistance were followed by sharp sell-offs.

Price action wise, when an ascending channel is trendline is broken near a key resistance level, it's normal for some profit booking to take place, and this typically results in the price dropping to retest either the ascending channel trendline or a former resistance like $11,900 to determine whether or not buyers remain bullish enough to confirm the level as support.

On the 4-hr timeframe we can see that this is what has occurred as the price dropped to $11,850 as investors pulled in profits.

This would heighten the possibility of a repeat of the previous sell-offs from 12K. As mentioned in a previous analysis, Bitcoin price has support at the 20-MA and at the $11,500-$11,400 level.

If the price were dip below the ascending channel midline, there is also support at $11,200 and $10,900.

A push to the daily high would put the price back at a key resistance level which if flipped to support would put Bitcoin price back on the path to securing a new 2020 high.