DaBoyz are taking no prisoners in this rampage to 28,548, a Hidden Pivot resistance that looks likely to be fulfilled precisely. That means that if you’ve been riding with the move, you should either lighten up or put on some hedges when it gets to where it’s going  The pattern is gnarly enough to favor all of our entry strategies, but there have been no pullbacks generous enough to offer a ‘mechanical’ entry opportunity on charts of this degree. Once above 28,548, bulls will have a lot of chewing to do in order to munch their way through supply just above, and below, the psychologically interesting number 30,000. Those who are trapped in bitcoin at much higher prices will probably need to see 45,000 before they turn from prayerful to greedy. _______ UPDATE (Mar 18, 9:00 a.m. EDT): The above was written after Friday’s close. However, that was before I noticed a WSJ story that had been published around the same time. It began as follows: “Barney Frank says regulators seized Signature Bank last weekend because they wanted to send a message to other banks not to do business with the crypto industry. The evidence increasingly suggests the former Congressman could be right.”  It is 8:40 Saturday morning, and BRTI for whatever reason appears not to be trading. This is unusual, but perhaps it is just a regular Saturday pause that I hadn’t noticed before. In any event, I’ll be interested to see how the article affects bitcoin. There are times when seemingly devastating news has no initial impact on a trading vehicle; then, after a baffling period of seeming calm, said vehicle collapses. These delays can be orchestrated by the usual dirtballs, who wisely resist the temptation to panic. This allows them to keep the trading vehicle hovering at altitude for a short while, like Wile E. Coyote after he has entered the air space just beyond a cliff. The rubes naturally assume that the news was not as bad as they first thought. However, the moment the dirtballs have finished distributing however much stock (or bitcoin) the market would bear, they pull the plug. A very similar scam plays out sometimes when bearish Fed news hits the tape. So skillful are the dirtballs at stealing from the rubes that they can actually cause stocks to rise on bad news for a few critical minutes. This allows them to distribute stock into a short-covering spikes propagated by freaked out traders who assume they’d misinterpreted the news. In this case, the statement by Barney Frank, co-author of the Dodd-Frank bill and a board member at Signature Bank, cannot be other than very bearish for bitcoin. However, bitcoin has been solidly in the grip of diabolically Smart Money that has worked hard to set up a propitious exit. They are trapped at much higher prices, with few bids to allow an escape. Engineered, volumeless spikes create  artificial demand for very short periods. However, the larger, presumptive objective of the Smart Money has been to raise bitcoin’s price above perhaps $40,000 in order to coax forth real demand and solid bids. For an explanation of why bitcoin is worth more like $3-$4 rather than $27,000 (let alone $70,000),click here to access my recent interview with Howe Street‘s Jim Goddard. ______ UPDATE (Mar 19, 10:44 a.m.): Please note that the foregoing has not changed the technical picture, which implies bitcoin is all but certain to reach 28,548, and nearly as likely to make a tradeable top very close to that number. _______ UPDATE (Mar 20, 9:21 p.m.): Bertie got second wind with a thrust to 28,550 that scored a dead-center bullseye, missing the target by just $2, or 0.0007%.  The pullback has been $1,000 so far, but bulls look poised to bust through the Hidden Pivot ceiling if stocks are strong on Tuesday.