Bitcoin teases August 2023 breakdown as analysis eyes $85K BTC price

Bitcoin may be lining up an August 2023 repeat as BTC price “choppiness” reaches extreme levels.New research from onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant on Feb. 17 concludes that is “ready” for volatility.Bitcoin gets key 2023 comparisonBitcoin price action has rarely been so rangebound, and while volumes are dropping, market participants are bracing for a shakeout.For CryptoQuant contributor Percival, the atmosphere is reminiscent of August 2023. Highlighting readings from Bitcoin’s Choppiness Index, he noted that at the time, the return of volatility brought a snap drop before embarked on a multimonth uptrend.“Our Choppiness Index on both the daily and weekly charts is quite unstable (62 and 72 respectively), meaning it urgently needs to enter a trend, suggesting a more aggressive movement to either side of the box,” he wrote alongside a corresponding chart.“Evidence of this pressure is the 90-day range that Bitcoin has found, with fluctuations ranging around 16% from the maximum to the minimum of the lateral range.”Percival added that in 2023, before the uptrend, ”price cleared all traders of ‘boring’ positions in the opposite direction due to low volatility” — further strengthening the case for a major liquidity grab to come.The Choppiness Index has seen multiple local peaks over the past six months as Bitcoin intersperses periods of rapid gains with grinding consolidations.In December, Percival used its readings to correctly forecast a cooling-off period for once it hit the area around $110,000.BTC price targets include $85,000 floorConsidering potential price floors should the 2023 scenario kick in, Percival flagged the short-term holder (STH) cost basis at $92,000 as a level of interest.Should this fail, the 200-day exponential moving average (EMA), currently at $85,000 per data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, looked attractive.“The possibility of false moves before the bull run is strong, many breakout traders are positioned in these zones, and the sovereign market tends to blow up these positions and return to the expected course!” he concluded.The STH Spent Output Profit Ratio (SOPR) metric, which measures the proportion of unspent transaction outputs, or UTXOs, of STH entity transactions in profit or loss, meanwhile reflects its mildly negative values from August 2023.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.