Bitcoin’s $120M Hurdle: Can Bulls Power Through the Next ’Stair-Step’ Rally?

Bitcoin’s relentless climb faces a critical test—$120 million in sell-side pressure threatens to derail its methodical ’stair-step’ uptrend. Market makers are sweating.

The pattern? Each consolidation phase gets shorter before another leg up. But this time, whales might have other plans—because nothing says ’free market’ like a few well-timed sell walls.

Technical traders eye the $72K level as make-or-break. Meanwhile, derivatives markets flash mixed signals—open interest up, but funding rates cooling. Classic crypto: everyone’s bullish until they’re not.

Will liquidity hunters force a breakout, or is this the pullback before the real rally? Grab your charts and popcorn—Wall Street’s watching, but probably still doesn’t get it.

Similarly, since May 10, prices have oscillated mainly between $101,000 and $105,000, marking consolidation following the step into six figure territory.

From here, advancing to the next phase of gains will require bulls to chew through a substantial number of sell orders at around $105,000, posing a significant resistance barrier.

Sell orders worth nearly $50 million were open at $104,800 across major exchanges in addition to the $70 million in selling pressure at $105,000, according to data source Kiyotaka.ai.

The analytics platform tracks the order book heat map by pulling order book data from spot trading on Binance, Bitstamp, Bybt, Coinbase and OKX and perpetual futures trading on Binance, Bybit and OKX.

An open order placed above the current market price is usually a sell order. These can be called limit sell orders, setting the minimum price that sellers are willing to accept. When the spot price reaches this level, the order may be executed, allowing the seller to sell at or above that level.

The chart shows that the global aggregated order book is relatively stacked at higher price levels, hinting at potential profit taking as prices approach lifetime highs.

Macro indicators and technical momentum indicators suggest the path of least resistance is on the higher side, meaning sooner or later bulls will absorb the selling pressure, lifting valuations to record highs.

In other words, these sell walls won’t be there forever.