Bitcoin Price Dips Below $4,000 as Markets Remain Volatile

Despite the positive Bitcoin price momentum over the past two days, things have taken a turn for the worse once again. With a 7.21% decline over the past 24 hours, the Bitcoin price is once again falling hard. Right now, one Bitcoin is worth less than US$4,000 although the end may not be in sight just yet. It is unclear what is driving this massive sell-off, as there is no real reason for such panic moves.

Bitcoin Price Keeps Taking Hits

All bets are off as far as the cryptocurrency markets are concerned right now. Over the past two days, it appeared as if the Bitcoin price was starting to recover a bit. Just yesterday, the price nearly hit US$4,400 as it became apparent that the latest news from China regarding the suspension of exchange-based trading was nothing more than rumor. However, it seems some people are taking this warning to heart and liquidating all of their cryptocurrency assets as a result.

One thing that could explain this recent sell-off is a recent statement by the CEO of JP Morgan Chase. Although the bank doesn’t have the most solid of reputations in the financial sector, its CEO took the time to denounce Bitcoin. For some reason, this news has sent even more shockwaves throughout the cryptocurrency community over the past few hours. Bitcoin doesn’t need approval from bank CEOs to be successful; otherwise, it would have died a slow death years ago.

Then again, statements like this one from the CEO of the world’s third-largest bank still carry a lot of weight. It is not entirely surprising that the Bitcoin price dropped by a few percentage points shortly afterward. This statement, combined with the recent China rumors, have successfully spooked some of the “weaker hands” in the cryptocurrency world. The statement by JP Morgan Chase’s CEO carries no real weight whatsoever, though, and should be disregarded. In fact, every time a bank CEO tells you not to invest in something, it is all the more validation to do the exact opposite.

Right now, the Bitcoin price is short of the US$4,000 target and may drop a bit lower before things stabilize again. It is unclear where the real support is resting for Bitcoin right now, as very few people expected to see a price dip below US$4,000 at this point in time. Then again, cryptocurrency markets remain highly unpredictable and volatile first and foremost. The current Bitcoin price trend illustrates this perfectly.

There is no shortage of Bitcoin trading volume, though. Over the past 24 hours, all tracked exchanges combined processed nearly US$2 billion in trading volume. That is more than US$300 million higher than the day prior, when we saw a small price gain. Today, it appears bearish sentiment controls all of the markets, which is rather unfortunate. Chinese exchanges are still actively trading Bitcoin in large quantities, further indicating there is no impending suspension of such services in the country whatsoever.

One interesting point to note is that the Chinese exchanges no longer trade Bitcoin below the global market average. More specifically, the earlier gaps of US$600 and US$200 have all but disappeared right now. It seems the Western exchanges drove the price down, as prices in China have declined by a bit less compared to Western exchanges. This is an interesting contrast that may hint at a joint effort to restore the Bitcoin price back to the US$5,000 level over the coming weeks.