For the second day in a row, Bitcoin bulls have attacked the $19,500 level in an attempt to flip the crucial level from resistance to support. 

Each attempt to overcome the resistance is has been rejected near $19,550 but Bitcoin’s swift recovery from the Dec. 14 drop to $19,050 shows that investors remain interested in buying every significant dip.

Crypto market daily price chart. Source: Coin360

At the moment, the general consensus among traders is that flipping $19,500 to support will open the door to a new all-time high at or above $20,000. According to Cointelegraph contributor Micheal van de Poppe:

“If we get the breakout above the resistance and we print a new ATH, it's more important to see the $19,400-19,500 area become support rather than hitting that ATH.”

Van de Poppe further explained that the current bearish convergence on the daily timeframe is not confirmed and he stressed the if Bitcoin price fails to reclaim $19,500 as strong support the likely outcome is that the price will drop to $18,500 where traders will look for a better entry.

BTC/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

Even as Bitcoin struggles to hold onto $19,500, the daily chart shows the price continuing to make daily higher lows. Since recovering from the Dec. 11 drop to $17,586. BTC has also made daily higher highs which is a further signal that the digital asset is in a strong uptrend.

Bitcoin daily price chart. Source: Coin360

While Bitcoin price attempts to trade in a new range, a handful of altcoins pushed higher with double-digit rallies.

Elrond price surged 28% during the day and is currently up 115% in the past two weeks. SushiSwap’s governance token, Sushi, also rallied 9.84% to $2.80 and is up 44% over the past 4 days.

Bancor was the most notable gainer of the day as it secured a 34.5% rally to $1.70 on the news of the Coinbase Pro listing that took place today.

According to CoinMarketCap, the overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $566.6 billion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 63.6%.