Bull or bear? Today’s $106k retest could decide Bitcoin’s fate

Bitcoin treated $106,400 as a pivot in the current cycle, acting as resistance and support.

The price has repeatedly rallied near the level, broken it on retests, and expanded towards the next channel bands, while breaks below the level often require a repair phase before any progress.

My graphs below show price channels which have been most influential to Bitcoin since the beginning of 2024, with $106,400 highlighted by the solid yellow line.

In mid-December 2024, the price first cleared $106,000 after a steady climb from areas below $100,000. Once the level broke, the price pressed to $107,800 before failing a retest of $106,400 and falling to the middle of $90,000.

The end of January 2025 brought a similar model with more back-and-fill. Bitcoin hit $106,400 from below, then stalled. Follow-through brought the intraday price into the $108,300 range before again failing the retest.

Even with the noise in the channel network, the inflection at $106,400 organized the action, with the market repeatedly checking the level before retreating. The consistency of this behavior across weeks is what makes the line useful for risk management.

At the end of May 2025, the relationship changed. The price tested $106,400 twice from below and then twice more from above before using this level as support several more times.

The rebounds led to $111,900 and $110,300, then the momentum broke on the sixth retest, and a lower grind began.

During this period, $106,400 behave as a plan. As long as the closes are held above, the sellers have failed to press the next lower bands in size. Once the floor finally gave way at the end of the month, the recovery took longer, reinforcing the idea that losing the pivot changes time.

June 2025 again illustrated the support and resistance function.

After dipping below the level in the middle of the month and then being rejected four more times (with ​​an intraday breakout above), Bitcoin eventually regained $106,400 at the end of the month, held several intraday highs, and advanced to $108,300 and $109,400.

The response after each retest was ordered, which is typical when a highly guarded pivot is respected. Traders waiting for confirmation at the line have explicit invalidation if the price has fallen through $106,400, and clear targets in the upper bands are held.

This saw Bitcoin crack into price discovery territory and eventually reach its cycle high of $126,000. We haven’t seen $106,400 tested again until the Trump trade rate 19 billion dollars wipeouyou October 10.

The sequence from October to early November 2025 shows the other side.

A decisive break from the higher levels fell to $106,400 before returning towards $115,000. Bitcoin has tried to hold the pivot several times, and as of press time, it is about to mark its eighth test.

So far, every time $106,400 has been tested since we hit $126,000, the price has immediately rebounded towards $110,000 – $115,000.

Ominously, Bitcoin has never held $106,400 after eight retests before.

These repeated interactions matter because they compress a complex set of variables into a single reference.

$106,400 aligns with the middle of the current channel pack on the displayed chart, which means it is near a fair value asset where buyers and sellers are finding liquidity.

When the price is accepted above this level, the path of least resistance changes to the next higher cluster. When the price declines or loses its level, the market often has to rebuild the participation below before the buyers take control again.

The pattern through the screenshots can be summarized as follows.

For traders who map decisions to levels, the playbook is simple.

When the price breaks $106,400 and confirms in a retest, attention naturally shifts to the next groups above around $107,800, $108,300, $109,400 and $110,500, which align with the yellow dashed steps on the displayed scale.

The failure to return through the pivot returns attention to the downside stack around $105,500, $104,500, and $103,800, where the market has repeatedly found liquidity during breakdowns.

This framework does not predict direction; define the areas where the quality of the execution tends to improve and where the invalidation is unambiguous.

This level also helps to reconcile conflicting signals from momentum or funding.

During periods when momentum turns, but the price is still above $106,400, the path to higher bands often remains open until the pivot holds.

During periods when the derivative positioning seems crowded, but the market cannot regain its level, the burden of proof remains with the buyers until acceptance returns. The result is a practical approach to exposure management without overfitting to short-term indicators.

None of these assign special status to a single number beyond its repeated use in the current structure. Markets evolve, and pivots migrate as distribution changes.

However, the charted channels have represented intraday support and resistance levels for nearly 2 years at this point.

The value of $106,400 is found in the tape that keeps returning to it, the reactions that form around it, and the clarity that it offers for planning the next trade.

Thus, $106,400 seems to be functioning as the balance point of the cycle, and the price continues to act like this.