Bitcoin was up Tuesday despite lower-than-average spot volumes. Meanwhile, ether’s price hits record high and the cyrpto’s dominance is back at February levels.
Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $54,840 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 1.4% over the previous 24 hours.
Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $52,722-$55,261 (CoinDesk 20)
BTC near the 10-hour and well above the 50-hour moving average on the hourly chart, a bullish signal for market technicians.
The price of bitcoin climbed as high as $55,261 around 17:00 GMT (12 PM ET) before settling to $54,840 as of press time.
It’s possible the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization could be headed higher.
A test of the $56,000 mark will soon follow, then will most likely roll back,” said Constantine Kogan, a partner at investment firm Wave Financial.
According to CoinDesk 20 data, bitcoin was last at $56,000 on April 20, when it declined from the all-time high price of $64,829 reached April 14.
The rise this week comes after bitcoin’s price went as low as $47,272 on Sunday.
Stefan Coolican, chief financial officer for investment firm Ether Capital, says dumps and recoveries are just part of the crypto market. “I think the weekend sell-off was overdone, personally, so a bounce back makes sense,” Coolican said.
Spot bitcoin exchange volumes for Tuesday were around $2.6 billion as of press time, compared with the past three months’ average of $5.1 billion of BTC changing hands daily.
It’s possible larger players are the ones in the market this week, with retail and new investors remaining cautious because of crypto’s notorious gyration. This caused lower volumes Tuesday.
Bitcoin is an information-asymmetry environment,” Wave’s Kogan said. “A small number in the community are aware of impending price changes, and only a small number of global venues are able to manage these large trades.”
Despite the volume doldrums, a positive news cycle is affecting bitcoin’s price, Kogan said.
“JPMorgan is preparing to launch an actively managed bitcoin fund for high-net-worth clients,” Kogan said. “Tesla announced the sale of part of [its] bitcoins and profit taking, which is also positive. This helps the bullish trend."
YahooFinance
