Bitcoin is trading above $80,000, according to CoinDesk market data, after recovering from Friday’s dip, but the rebound still looks more like a market testing resistance than a decisive move higher.
The market structure tells a more complicated story than the price alone, according to market observers.
Beneath bitcoin’s rebound, buyers are becoming more active, and structural support from ETFs remains intact, but much of the recent activity is also being amplified by leveraged futures traders rather than purely spot demand. That makes the recovery more vulnerable to a macro disappointment, particularly with inflation data looming.
Singapore-based market maker Enflux said in a note to CoinDesk that ETF demand and low exchange reserves are helping to build a structural floor for BTC, while Glassnode’s market indicators in its most recent weekly report show buyers becoming more aggressive in both the spot and perpetual markets.
The problem is that the improvement is not clean. Momentum has eased, leverage has risen, and funding is showing more short-side demand, suggesting traders are still hedging against the rally rather than fully embracing it.
That leaves bitcoin in an awkward middle ground. BTC is up 13.4% over the past 30 days and is holding above $81,000, but Friday’s reaction to the stronger-than-expected jobs report — strong numbers mean the Fed is less likely to cut rates — showed how sensitive the market remains to recent buyer cost bases. The headline number beat consensus, yet BTC fell from about $82,000 to $79,743 before recovering over the weekend.
“A headline beat should have cleared $80,700 cleanly, but spot pulled back first,” Enflux wrote. “That level is real overhead, not just a chart marker.”
If risk appetite is returning, why hasn’t BTC broken out more convincingly? Enflux points to an unusual comparison point, arguing that the recovering luxury watch market may offer an early read on how affluent investors are behaving.
Citing Morgan Stanley’s latest secondary watch data, the firm noted that prices rose 1.9% in the first quarter, with gains spreading across 25 of 35 tracked brands as value retention and inventory turnover improved. The broader takeaway is not that crypto money is flowing into watches, but that affluent buyers are re-engaging with risk assets where pricing, scarcity and demand look easier to underwrite after a long correction.
That creates an uncomfortable contrast for bitcoin: if high-end risk appetite is thawing, BTC’s continued struggle to decisively break above key resistance suggests crypto has not yet become the clearest expression of that returning confidence.
Glassnode’s trading data suggests buyers are becoming more aggressive, but not in a way that fully resolves the question of conviction. One key measure is cumulative volume delta, or CVD, which tracks whether traders are more aggressively buying at market prices or selling into bids.
In simple terms, it helps show who is pushing the market. Glassnode said spot CVD, which reflects activity in the underlying bitcoin market, rose 46.4% from $42.4 million to $62.0 million, suggesting buyers are increasingly willing to pay up rather than wait for cheaper entry points.
Perpetual CVD, the same measure applied to crypto futures, jumped from $110.0 million to $410.3 million, showing leveraged traders are also leaning more bullish. That can accelerate gains, but it is a less durable signal than spot demand because futures positions can reverse quickly if sentiment shifts. The caution signals are just as important.
Bitcoin, market observers say, has a stronger floor than it did a month ago, but the next leg higher may depend less on crypto-native enthusiasm than on whether inflation data gives traders enough confidence to stop hedging the rally and start chasing it.