Bitcoin opened today at a price of $6,717, so the drop was nearly $700 roughly ten percent. The low on February 6 was $5,947. Actually, the low for the day ended up at $5,938 marginally below the Feb. 6 mark. The present price is down more than 60 percent from the 2018 high of $19,783 set in January.
Conditions differ now from February
Bitcoin’s drop in February was when there was regulatory uncertainty, and during the week U.S. regulators were meeting to discuss the phenomenal bitcoin price rise with U.S. lawmakers. When no action was taken the price rebounded fully 40 percent within a week.
However, the article claims that there are no similar threats at this time but only some potential action against minor Japanese exchanges. There are no major news drivers that currently impact the market. As we shall see some analysts would disagree with this assessment.
Reasons why bitcoin’s price may be falling
An article in Quartz claims that the bitcoin(BTC) price is falling on bad news. The article cites Japanese government orders to six exchange operators to improve their business. However, they also add the fact that a South Korean trading platform suffered a hack that resulted in the theft of $30 million in digital tokens. Other reasons for the decline are discussed in the appended video.
Other cryptocoins also decline
On Friday, litecoin the 6th largest coin by market cap hit its lowest level in 7 months. The price of ether, the second largest currency is also down to $479 which is roughly 60 percent of its all-time high last December. The total market cap of cryptocoins is now just $259 billion down from an all-time high of $813 billion.
CoinDesks earlier prediction
An earlier CoinDesk analysis today of bitcoin’s (BTC) charts ended up with the following view for the weekend: “BTC will likely find acceptance below the immediate support of $6,000 (February low) over the weekend, and could drop to $5,090 (target as per the measured height method) over the next couple of weeks. A daily close (as per UTC) above $6,850 (June 18 high) would abort the immediate bearish view. A high volume break above the 50-week MA, currently located at $6,958 would signal long-term bearish invalidation.
The present situation
The price opened the day slightly above $6,000 at $6,053. It is now June 23rd 2:50 and the price of BTC is $6,152 almost 100 hundred dollars above the open. The high today so far has been $6,164 and the low $6,049. While the price shows no sign of reaching towards prices that would invalidate the long-term bearish outlook it has not yet even dipped below the $6,000 level let alone found acceptance below it. Of course the weekend is only starting and perhaps the bearish predictions will turn out to be true. The present price of bitcoin can be found here.
