Bitcoin (BTC) saw a steep sudden decrease of about 3 percent, falling below $3,600 in a matter of minutes. The entire cryptocurrency market followed, wiping $5 billion off the sheets.
Bitcoin Price: Signs of Weakness?
Bitcoin (BTC) lost about 3 percent of its price in a matter of minutes. This resulted in a sub $3,600 price. At the time of writing this, Bitcoin is trading at $3,562.32 according to data from CoinMarketCap.
According to a cryptocurrency trader with Twitter account @HsakaTrades, though, the leg down was rather expected.
On January 12th, a day before the decline, the trader tweeted:
“Some thoughts. The first wick below the range low led to a tap of the range high. The second one (this current one) has failed to reach that high as of now. Signs of weakness imo.”
Another alarming fact is that the 48-hour trading volume is comparatively low. In fact, at the time of writing this, it’s almost two times lower than the previous period of comparison.
The Market Follows
The entire cryptocurrency market experienced a sudden decrease over the past few hours, losing $5 billion in the process.
After regaining its position as the second largest cryptocurrency for a few weeks, Ethereum (ETH) has once again been unseated by Ripple (XRP). The former lost about 8% of its price in the last few hours while the latter only about 3.62%.
The decrease comes just a few days before Ethereum is scheduled to go through a major system upgrade.
Constantinople, as the upgrade is called, will take place on January 16th. One of the most notable changes that will affect the network is the reduction in the block reward from 3 ETH/block to 2 ETH/block.
The biggest loser from the top 20 cryptocurrencies has been TRON (TRX). It saw about 10 percent of its value gone.
What do you think of the sudden decline in cryptocurrency prices? Do share your thoughts in the comments below!
Images credit to CoinMarketCap.com; Bitcoinity.org; Pixabay.com