Bitcoin (BTC) circled $83,000 on March 30 after weekend volatility brought new ten-day lows.

BTC/USD 4-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

BTC price action deals snap weekend downside

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD gradually recovering after a trip to $81,600 the day prior.

With no added selling pressure from the ongoing rout in US stock markets, Bitcoin managed to erase most of the downside to come full circle versus the last Wall Street close.

“Quite the volatility for a weekend indeed,” popular trader Daan Crypto Trades summarized in part of his latest content on X. 

“Looking like it might end up opening on Monday where it closed on Friday as most of the dump has been retraced now.”

BTC/USDT 15-minute chart with CME futures data. Source: Daan Crypto Trades/X

Daan Crypto Trades eyed the potential for a new gap in CME Group’s Bitcoin futures markets to be created thanks to the erratic market moves.

“Would be nice to not open with a gap for once so we can focus on everything else instead,” he argued, adding that a “big week” lay ahead.

Others had little hope for a short-term turnaround in Bitcoin’s fortunes. Veteran trader Peter Brandt even doubted the stability of the multimonth lows seen earlier this month.

I am not a big fan of inverted H&S patterns with downward slanting necklines. H&S patterns with horizontal necklines are far more reliable $BTC pic.twitter.com/GKGUZbrab8

— Peter Brandt (@PeterLBrandt) March 29, 2025

“Don’t shoot the messenger. Just reporting on what the chart says until it says something different,” he told X followers this week, giving a new lower BTC price target. 

“Bear wedge completed with 2X target from the double top at 65,635.”

BTC/USD 1-day chart. Source: Peter Brandt/X

Brandt’s is not the only $65,000 BTC price prediction currently in force.

Can “spoofy” $78,000 Bitcoin bids be trusted?

Updating his market observations, meanwhile, Keith Alan, co-founder of trading resource Material Indicators, doubled down on his suspicions that a large-volume entity had been manipulating BTC price action lower in recent weeks.

Related: ‘Bitcoin Macro Index’ bear signal puts $110K BTC price return in doubt

As Cointelegraph reported, the entity, which Alan dubbed “Spoofy, The Whale,” had used overhead liquidity to pressure the price lower and stop it from gaining traction above $87,500.

This form of order book manipulation, known as “spoofing,” is a common feature in crypto and can involve both bid and ask liquidity.

“While I have no real way of confirming that it is the same entity using ask liquidity to herd price into their own bids, it certainly appears that Spoofy has been buying this dip and has bids laddered down to $78k,” he concluded on the day.

An annotated chart showed all key liquidity clusters thought to be of dubious origin, with Alan now giving reason for optimism.

He concluded: 

“In the grand scheme of things, none of this means BTC price can’t go lower, but it does mean that the whale that has been suppressing BTC price for the last 3 weeks is using a DCA strategy to buy this dip…and so am I.”

BTC/USDT order book data for Binance. Source: Keith Alan/X

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

Concerns over a global trade war continue to pressure traditional and cryptocurrency markets as investors brace for a potential tariff announcement from US President Donald Trump on April 2 — a move that could set the tone for Bitcoin’s price trajectory throughout the month.

Trump first announced import tariffs on Chinese goods on Jan. 20, the day of his inauguration as president.

Global tariff fears have led to heightened inflation concerns, limiting appetite for risk assets among investors. Bitcoin (BTC) has fallen 18%, and the S&P 500 (SPX) index has fallen more than 7% in the two months following the initial tariff announcement, according to TradingView data, TradingView data shows.

“Going forward, April 2 is drawing increased attention as a potential flashpoint for fresh US tariff announcements,” Stella Zlatareva, dispatch editor at digital asset investment platform Nexo, told Cointelegraph.

S&P 500, BTC/USD, 1-day chart. Source: TradingView 

Investor sentiment took another hit on March 29 after Trump pressed his senior advisers to take a more aggressive stance on import tariffs, which may be seen as a potential escalation of the trade war, the Washington Post reported, citing four unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

The April 2 announcement is expected to detail reciprocal trade tariffs targeting top US trading partners. The measures aim to reduce the country’s estimated $1.2 trillion goods trade deficit and boost domestic manufacturing.

Related: Bitcoin ‘more likely’ to hit $110K before $76.5K — Arthur Hayes

Bitcoin ETFs, whales continue accumulating

Despite mounting uncertainty, large Bitcoin holders — known as “whales,” with between 1,000 BTC and 10,000 BTC — have continued to accumulate.

Addresses in this category have remained steady since the beginning of 2025, from 1,956 addresses on Jan. 1 to over 1,990 addresses on March 27 — still below the previous cycle’s peak of 2,370 addresses recorded in February 2024, Glassnode data shows.

Whale address count. Source: Glassnode

“Risk appetite remains muted amid tariff threats from President Trump and ongoing macro uncertainty,” according to Iliya Kalchev, dispatch analyst at Nexo, who told Cointelegraph:

“Still, BTC accumulation by whales and a 10-day ETF inflow streak point to steady institutional demand. But hawkish surprises — from inflation or trade — may keep crypto rangebound into April.”

Related: $1T stablecoin supply could drive next crypto rally — CoinFund’s Pakman

The US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds halted their 10-day accumulation streak on March 28 when Fidelity’s ETF recorded over $93 million worth of outflows, while the other ETF issuers registered no inflows or outflows, Farside Investors data shows.

Bitcoin ETF Flows. Source: Farside Investors

Despite short-term volatility concerns, analysts remained optimistic about Bitcoin’s price trajectory for late 2025, with price predictions ranging from $160,000 to above $180,000.

Magazine: SCB tips $500K BTC, SEC delays Ether ETF options, and more: Hodler’s Digest, Feb. 23 – March 1

A savvy cryptocurrency trader reportedly turned $2,000 into more than $43 million by investing in the memecoin Pepe at its peak valuation, despite the token’s extreme volatility and lack of underlying technical value.

The trader made an over 4,700-fold return on investment on the popular frog-themed Pepe (PEPE) cryptocurrency, according to blockchain intelligence platform Lookonchain.

“This OG spent only $2,184 to buy 1.5T $PEPE($43M at the peak) in the early stage. He sold 1.02T $PEPE for $6.66M, leaving 493B $PEPE($3.64M), with a total profit of $10.3M(4,718x), Lookonchain wrote in a March 29 X post.

Source: Lookonchain

The trader realized over $10 million in profit despite Pepe’s price falling over 74% from its all-time high of $0.00002825, which it reached on Dec. 9, 2024, Cointelegraph Markets Pro data shows.

PEPE/USD, all-time chart. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro

Memecoins are considered some of the most speculative and volatile digital assets, with price action driven largely by online enthusiasm and social sentiment rather than fundamental utility or innovation.

Still, they’ve proven capable of generating life-changing returns. In May 2024, another early Pepe investor turned $27 into $52 million — a 1.9 million-fold return — according to onchain data.

Related: $1T stablecoin supply could drive next crypto rally — CoinFund’s Pakman

Memecoins are stealing the spotlight from altcoins

Despite their intrinsic lack of utility, memecoins continued to steal the spotlight from more established cryptocurrencies, Stella Zlatareva, dispatch editor at digital asset investment platform Nexo, told Cointelegraph:

“High-beta, i.e., volatile tokens, are stealing the spotlight. Case in point, memecoins surged 5.6% on average, with DOGE, PEPE, and FLOKI responding to rate cut optimism and broader crypto strength.”

Top 100 cryptocurrencies, weekly performance. Source: Cryptobubbles

While investor demand for memecoins has surged, it may also be siphoning capital from more established assets. For example, Solana (SOL) has fallen more than 51% since the launch of the Official Trump (TRUMP) token in January, according to Cointelegraph data.

Related: Friday’s US inflation report may catalyze a Bitcoin April rally

Memecoins “don’t tend to draw in much external capital flow; instead existing eco-system capital ‘round-robins’ from one meme to the next,” Dan Hughes, founder of the decentralized finance platform Radix, told Cointelegraph, adding:

“Even in the case of TRUMP, most of the inbound liquidity was outflow from other crypto assets, people selling their crypto portfolio to buy TRUMP in extreme FOMO [fear of missing out].”

SOL/USDT, 1-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Insider scams and fraudulent activity have plagued the memecoin industry, and US regulators are taking note. On March 5, New York lawmakers introduced a bill aimed at protecting crypto investors from rug pulls and similar insider scams shortly after the scandal around the Libra (LIBRA) token, which was endorsed by Argentine President Javier Milei.

Magazine: Memecoins are ded — But Solana ‘100x better’ despite revenue plunge