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The BTC/USD pair has been growing within the framework of a market-wide upward trend since the beginning of the year, but last week it corrected down to the area of 21500.00.

The reason for the decline was the combination of two main negative factors – signals about the possibility of maintaining a tight monetary policy in the USA for a long time and a series of investigations by American regulators against cryptocurrency companies. Recall that last week was rich in comments from leading officials of the US Fed, who agreed that it is necessary to continue raising the interest rate until the labor market can cool down, and the prerequisites for further inflation growth will not be eliminated. In this scenario, the US currency will continue to receive support against alternative assets, including digital ones.

At the same time, the American authorities began to pay more and more attention to the digital market. The bankruptcy of FTX caused officials to want to exclude the recurrence of such incidents and provide additional protection for investor funds, which resulted in a series of inspections and investigations against cryptocurrency companies. So, last week it became known that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused the Kraken digital exchange of offering and selling an unregistered staking program to customers. The platform did not admit its guilt, but made a deal with the regulator, terminating its offer and paying a fine of 30.0M dollars. The head of the SEC, Gary Gensler, has already stated that cryptocurrency exchanges should pay attention to the situation with Kraken, and this made experts fear a complete ban on staking for retail investors in the USA. Thus, the next target of the SEC may be the Coinbase Earn offer. We also note reports from Bloomberg that the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has initiated an investigation into the activities of Paxos Trust Company, which is the issuer of USDP and BUSD stablecoins. The details of the case are still unknown, but it has already caused the suspension of the development of its own stable token by the payment giant PayPal Holdings Inc., which collaborated with Paxos Trust Company.

In general, the pressure of American regulators on the cryptocurrency sector continues to increase and in the future may lead to a further decline in prices.

Technically, the price has recouped some of the losses and is now at 21800.00, but the resumption of serious growth will be possible only if quotes consolidate above the middle line of the Bollinger Bands (22900.00). In this case, the growth targets will be the levels of 25000.00 (Murray level [8/8]) and 26250.00 (Murray level [+1/8]). A breakdown of 21250.00 (Murray level [5/8], Fibo retracement 61.8%) will give the prospect of continuing the decline to the area of 20000.00 (Murray level [4/8], Fibo retracement 50.0%) and 18750.00 (Murray level [3/8]).

Technical indicators do not give a single signal: the Bollinger Bands are reversing downwards, the MACD histogram is preparing to move into the negative zone, and the Stochastic may leave the oversold zone.

Resistance levels: 22900.00, 25000.00, 26250.00. | Support levels: 21250.00, 20000.00, 18750.00.