Bitcoin bulls have a lot of work to do to hold on to the newfound support, but if it fails, Bitcoin price could still fall below $20,000.

Bitcoin $22,393 March 5 The pair held steady near key support as a weekly candle close brought fresh fears of a collapse.

Analysts warn of $20,000 fate

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView follows Bitcoin/USD as it continues to move within a tight range over the weekend.

The pair has remained virtually static since the sudden drop on March 3, which triggered a margin call due to uncertainty at Silvergate Bank.

While avoiding further losses, analysis warns that Bitcoin could still easily fall to lower levels if nearby support levels fail to hold.

Monitoring resource Material Indicators explains that BTC price action has “lost key technical support,” with $22,000 — the scene of a recent resistance/support (R/S) flip — now all that’s left for bulls to grab onto.

"Local R/S flip zone is the last stop between trendline retests. Meanwhile, Trend Precognition shows a downtrend," it wrote in part of the day's Twitter update.

“Will see if things change after the W closes.”

The accompanying chart shows Binance’s trendline and BTC/USD order book in danger, with bid liquidity at $22,000.

Michael van de Poppe, Cointelegraph contributor and founder and CEO of trading firm Eight, warned that $20,000 might not help stem the outflows if $21,300 also fails to hold.

"The key area for#Bitcoinis holding the $21.3K area. Lose it and we'll see another wave to $19.5K and altcoins falling 15-25%," he predicted on March 4.

Still, Van de Poppe maintained a more optimistic outlook overall, suggesting $40,000 could still be in “a few months.”

“The moral of the story is: dollar cost averaging and buying when you’re not feeling confident,” he advised in a subsequent post.

'Overwhelming pessimism'

With Silvergate’s potential bankruptcy still a hot topic, research firm Santiment questioned why the market reacted so strongly.

Related: Bitcoin Price Would Retest $25,000 Without Silvergate Saga – Analysis

In a dedicated post about the phenomenon, the analysts revealed what they described as an “unusually high volume of negative commentary on the market.”

“It’s particularly interesting that#cryptocrashhas been a key trending hashtag on the platform, despite Bitcoin’s mild -5% pullback occurring just three days prior,” it continued of Twitter user behavior.

“Normally you can take advantage of this kind of negativity in the market, this overwhelming bearish sentiment can lead to a rally and silence the critics.”

C3 Note: The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author