Bitcoin 

BTC

$18,792

 hovered near $43,000 on Jan. 17 as its "boring" price action combined with signs that the market could be stabilizing.

Leverage comes off all-time highs

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD staying firmly within its established trading range between $40,000 and $45,000.

With few surprises expected thanks to the Wall Street holiday, traders took the opportunity to call for a level-headed approach on focus on altcoins.

Popular analyst William Clemente, meanwhile, highlighted Bitcoin bouncing along an ascending trendline this month, this soon to approach a turning point as part of a wedge construction.

"Should be an interesting week," he forecast.

Beyond spot price, data showed that market composition still employed near all-time high leverage, this only just beginning to reduce in week two of January.

Such leverage prevalence previously sparked concerns that a liquidity cascade could be made all the more real, with a significant move up or down hitting traders.

"The highly increased leverage ratio of Bitcoin that since some days remains at an all-time high is showing concerns that a massive volatility increase will follow up," commentator Vince Prince warned on the day.

"Technically if Bitcoin breaks the $40,000 level this will trigger a big chunk of stop-losses."

Cardano stands out among altcoins

On the topic of altcoins, meanwhile, some moves diverged from the flat performance seen more broadly.

Related: BTC ‘likely’ to repeat Q4 2020 move — 5 things to watch in Bitcoin this week

The top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap were led by Cardano 

ADA

$0.327

, which conspicuously bucked the sideways trend to post daily gains of almost 9% at the time of writing. This placed ADA/USD at a three-week high.

"Crucially, the market psychology is working on ADA again," Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe summarized.

"Last weeks the sentiment was comparable to a graveyard and expectations were that it would go south. Now, the sentiment is switching and the hype is getting back in."

Further down, Litecoin 

LTC

$84.36

 managed 4.5% gains in some brief respite for hodlers

"Another bounce at strong support. A break of the blue resistance should send this flying. Not there yet," trader, analyst and podcast host Scott Melker added about the LTC/USD pair.