Bitcoin price (BTC/USD) hits 19-day low
Bitcoin is currently struggling to keep its head above the $7,000 watermark, following a bad weekend which saw the world’s number one cryptocurrency, in terms of market cap, shed about 10 billion in value in just a couple of days.
The value of a single Bitcoin nosedived to $6,890 on Bitfinex yesterday (Sunday), which is its lowest price since July 17, before recovering somewhat to end the day (as per UTC) at $7,025.
At time of writing (4pm, ET, Monday), one BTC is fetching an average of $6,954.68, according to data from CoinMarketCap (see below), down 1.6% in 24 hours.
The reasons behind Bitcoin’s recent bearishness remain unclear; in fact, many were optimistic about the coin’s future last week for a few reasons.
For one, on Friday of last week, the Intercontinental Exchange, which is the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, hinted at plans to launch a new company that enables ‘consumers and institutions to buy, sell, store and spend digital assets on a seamless global network’, which one would expect to spur a surge.
In addition, Ali Hassan, one of three cofounders of U.S. asset manager Crescent Crypto, said he believes that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could approve a Bitcoin (BTC) Exchange-traded fund (ETF) within the next 18 months.
Some say the price is still reeling following the news, two weeks ago, that the Winklevoss twins’ application for a Bitcoin ETF was denied for the second time by the SEC.
Crypto downtrend
However, it could just be a case of what goes up, must come down; indeed, the entire cryptocurrency market has been on a general downtrend for most of 2018 after Bitcoin reached a high of nearly $20,000 in January.
Unsurprisingly, Bitcoin futures have also kicked off the week on a bad note.
The Cboe Global Markets Inc. August contract XBTQ8, -6.83% finished Monday down 6.4% at $6,920 and the CME Group Inc.’s August contract BTCQ8, -6.51% closed the day down 6.2% at $6,920, respectively.
Altcoins (coins other than Bitcoin) are also well below Friday’s closing levels.
Ether ETHUSD, -0.33% is down 1.7% to $403.44, Bitcoin Cash BCHUSD, -0.71% is trading down 3.1%, at $689.60, Litecoin LTCUSD, -0.91% is down 1.1% at $73.64 and Ripple’s XRPXRPUSD, -0.55% is trading 3.5% lower at 42 cents, respectively.
