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Key Takeaways
- Bitcoin is up more than 40% this quarter and slipped about 1% on Monday, while gold fell nearly 4% as long-dated Treasury yields hit their highest since 2007.
- Fidelity’s Jurrien Timmer sees a double-bottom breakout pattern targeting $100,000, and the $90,000, $95,000 and $100,000 calls hold the most open interest on Deribit.
- Chart patterns are not guarantees, and rising yields remain a headwind for non-yielding assets.
Bitcoin is outpacing gold this quarter at a time when rising bond yields are weighing on the metal, and its recent price action has traders watching for a possible run toward $100,000. Bitcoin has gained more than 40% since the start of the quarter, ahead of gold, the S&P 500 and other major assets over the same stretch.
Gold Falls as Yields Climb, Bitcoin Holds Up
Gold fell nearly 4% on Monday as longer-duration Treasury yields hit their highest levels since 2007, lifting the U.S. dollar index. The DXY has risen 2.7%, from 98.78 to near 101.50, since Sept. 9.
Bitcoin slipped about 1% over the same session, briefly touching lows near $82,500 before recovering to trade around $84,000. The smaller decline, against a backdrop of rising yields that typically pressure both metals and non-yielding assets, is what analysts pointed to as a sign of relative strength.
A Chart Pattern Traders Are Watching
Bitcoin’s move above $80,000 has triggered what chart analysts call a double-bottom breakout, a pattern that can signal a bullish trend, according to Jurrien Timmer, director of global macro at Fidelity Investments.
“If it breaks it will confirm a double bottom targeting $100K.”
A double bottom forms a shape resembling the letter W on a price chart. The price falls to a low, bounces, falls back to roughly the same level, then rises again. The two dips show buyers stepping in at a similar price both times, and the peak between them acts as resistance. A break above that peak suggests selling pressure has eased, and a new uptrend may be starting.
Timmer’s own chart identified Bitcoin’s two lows this year at $60,033 and $57,742, with the middle peak near $82,800. Bitcoin’s recent move back above $82,000 is what confirmed the pattern in Timmer’s analysis.
Chart patterns are not guarantees. Breakouts can fail and reverse quickly, leaving buyers who entered on the signal exposed to losses if the move does not hold.
Technical analysts generally treat a double-bottom breakout as one input among several rather than a standalone basis for a trade. This is because the same price structure can appear in charts that go on to reverse just as often as those that continue higher, depending on the broader market conditions surrounding the pattern.
Options Markets Show Traders Positioning for Further Gains
The bullish chart setup lines up with how options traders have positioned themselves. The $90,000 call is the most heavily held bitcoin options position on crypto exchange Deribit, with $2.45 billion in open interest. The $95,000 call follows with $2.33 billion, and the $100,000 call holds $1.79 billion.
A call option gives the buyer the right to buy an asset at a set price and profits once the market trades above that level. The concentration of open interest at those three price points shows a meaningful share of options traders betting on Bitcoin extending its rally well beyond current levels, though positioning of this kind can shift quickly if market conditions change.
The scale of open interest clustered around $90,000, $95,000 and $100,000 also gives those levels added significance beyond pure chart analysis.
As Bitcoin’s price approaches a strike price with heavy open interest, the hedging activity of options sellers can itself influence short-term price movement, a dynamic separate from, but sometimes reinforcing, the kind of technical pattern Timmer described.
Reading the Pattern With Caution
Bitcoin’s weekly price action shows the asset holding in the $80,000s and staying above its May highs even as upward momentum has shown some signs of slowing. That combination, a pattern technicians already regard as bullish alongside price holding firm above a key prior level, is what has kept the $100,000 target in play for traders watching the setup.
Still, a confirmed chart pattern describes what has already happened in price data, not a guarantee of what comes next. Rising Treasury yields remain a headwind for non-yielding assets broadly, and gold’s decline this week is a reminder that the same macro pressure weighing on one asset can, in principle, eventually weigh on the other.
