Bitcoin (BTC) retreated toward $69,000 after the April 12 Wall Street open as gold left BTC price action in the dust.

BTC price burns longs as gold rockets to all-time highs

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed lackluster performance on BTC/USD into the end of the week.

Despite lower outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), Bitcoin appeared in no mood for optimism as bid liquidity was eaten up below $70,000.

“Coinbase is responsible for this dip, with a Bitcoin price of -$70 compared to Binance,” J. A. Maartunn, a contributor to on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant, responded in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

Maartunn referred to the varying spot Bitcoin premiums on major exchanges.

Risk-asset gains were thus confined to gold, which hit new record highs of $2,431 per ounce on the day.

United States equities sided with Bitcoin, with both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indexes down around 1% at the time of writing.

Gold as an outlier even concerned some analytics sources, among the trading resource The Kobeissi Letter, which considered the macroeconomic landscape as conversely conducive to gold price downside.

“Every single factor that has historically led to LOWER gold prices is happening now. Except for 2 key factors, central banks are stocking up on gold and geopolitical tensions are skyrocketing,” part of an X post read.

“When gold is behaving so strangely, it leads you to one key question: Does someone know something?”

Bitcoin forms "clear re-accumulation range"

Now, within a narrow range for several weeks, BTC/USD had little news for traders on short timeframes, and attention was increasingly focused on the upcoming block subsidy halving as a potential source of volatility.

Related: Bitcoin RSI points to short-term gains as metric signals BTC price top

For popular trader and analyst Rekt Capital, a “re-accumulation phase” was now in progress.

“As is historically the case, Bitcoin is developing a clear Re-Accumulation Range going into the Halving,” he wrote in an X post.

“This is the range Bitcoin would likely breakout from weeks after the Halving.”

Earlier, Cointelegraph reported on an ongoing consolidation around previous all-time highs for Bitcoin, something common to previous macro breakout events.

In a further post, Rekt Capital added that re-accumulation could nonetheless last up to five months.

“Many investors get shaken-out in this stage due to boredom, impatience, and disappointment with lack of major results in their BTC investment in the immediate aftermath of the Halving,” he noted.

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.