Bitcoin leads sentiment improvement and points back to $45,000

Global markets experienced a recovery on Tuesday because of the de-escalation of the conflict on the Ukrainian border. Assets generally recovered after what was dubbed the 'Valentine's Day massacre' in the markets, and cryptocurrencies, which did not suffer a big sell-off by the standards of this investment class, have led the rallies as a result of improved investor sentiment and receding risk aversion.

"Bitcoin has been fairly stable during the uncertainty of the past few days. It had already started to pull back from $45,500 on profit-taking, but the drop since Friday has been fairly mild," commented Craig Erlam, analyst at Oanda.

Bicoin closed Tuesday at its highest level since early January, according to CoinMarketCap data, above $44,500 and all signs point to it being keen to try again at $45,000 - $45,500 where the first resistance resides. "Suddenly, last week's highs look quite vulnerable," noted Erlam, adding, "A break above this area would bring it back into healthy territory and we could see it build momentum from there."

Overall, the outlook is bullish for the queen of electronic currencies as "every day that passes the sensations in Bitcoin are better, so much so that it cannot be ruled out that from here on it is trying to restructure to the upside with an eye on November's all-time highs," commented José María Rodríguez, analyst at Bolsamanía.

The expert explained that "above $46,000 it could trigger a small bullish reversal with an upward target of approximately $60,000". With the permission of course "of the important horizontal resistance at $52,200. On the downside, on the support side, the most important of them all is at the January lows at $32,855," he pointed out.

Bloomberg analysts indicated, for their part, that the charts give the crypto queen upside potential up to $53,000. The 18% price increase for the world's most traded digital token "would be considered a bold move after being in a state of correction for the past 100 days," 'Bloomberg' experts commented. "Such a strong rise would point to further upside of about 53%," they added.

As for the 'altcoins', in general they left good feelings as well, especially Ethereum as it closed on February 15th above the level of $3,100. The second currency by market capitalization sits just above the 50-session moving average, which gives it upside potential up to the $3,400 resistance, a price that is just slightly below the crucial 200-day SMA at $3.5730. Continued rallies above the critical moving average could initiate another round of buying opportunities. In that scenario, Ether - token of the Ethereum network - could break above the $3,600 levels.

Mind you, it must first break above the crucial $3,200 level, where buying was rebuffed last week, triggering pullbacks to the $2,800 support. If the price fails to hold above, it opens the door to a return to these prices and a downward break below $2,830 could push the price towards the $2,500 level.

In other market news, avalanche rallies of more than 10% stand out as green takes hold in the major tokens. Total capitalization, on the other hand, is moving away from $2 trillion.