Bitcoin traders find themselves at somewhat of a crossroads right now. The Bitcoin price has seen spectacular growth over the past few weeks and is now experiencing a minor retrace. That in itself is not surprising by any means, yet it was still a bit unexpected for many. Moreover, it appears the markets are somewhat volatile right now, as dips are bought up quickly, while small price increases are pushed back down accordingly.
Bitcoin Price Battles to Maintain $4000
It is evident the recent Bitcoin price rally would have some unpopular consequences sooner or later. In this particular case, we are going through a brief Bitcoin price dip. “Briefly” is perhaps understating things, though, as close to US$6 billion has been wiped off Bitcoin’s market cap over the past 36 hours. That is quite a lot of money, which will evidently take some time to get back. Then again, a 7.5% decline is not entirely new in the world of Bitcoin either.
With the price still hovering around US$4,000, there is no real reason to panic whatsoever. Although we were on the verge of breaking $4,500 just a few hours ago, this correction is expected and absolutely necessary. It is only normal some early investors and speculators would be looking to take profits whenever they can. Moreover, some market makers would like nothing more than to stock up on cheaper bitcoins once again. To do that, the market price has to come down first, which is not all that easy to achieve.
Moreover, the Bitcoin trading volume is still quite strong. That is another indication that this negative price trend is only temporary. After all, a lot of people have only recently started purchasing their first shares of bitcoins and they will look for a price that will give them some decent returns. What that price point is exactly remains to be seen, though. For many people, it could be as low as US$5,000 whereas others wouldn’t mind seeing the Bitcoin price go to twice that value or more.
Looking over the trading markets, no one can deny that South Korea plays an important role in cryptocurrency. Surprisingly, Bithumb’s volume for Bitcoin has shifted to Bitcoin Cash almost entirely. There was still US$130 million of BTC trading volume in the past 24 hours, but it is dwarfed by what the BCH/KRW pair is doing right now. As of the time of writing, Bittrex is leading the Bitcoin trading volume charts with its Bitcoin Cash/BTC market. Bitfinex and Poloniex complete the top three. Once again, it is mainly alternative cryptocurrencies bringing in exchange volume for Bitcoin rather than dollars, euros, won, or other currencies.
There is no negative news to explain this sudden Bitcoin price downtrend, though. There are some political shenanigans on Twitter regarding BitPay, the world’s leading Bitcoin payment processor. It seems the company has been leaning toward SegWit2x over the more traditional SegWit scaling roadmap, without clarifying that properly at first. This situation has since been rectified, but a lot of people are not happy with the company right now. They are not turning their back on Bitcoin, though, and thus it shouldn’t negatively impact the Bitcoin price.
In the end, Bitcoin will be just fine in a few days from now. Bigger things are at play here which seemingly directly influence cryptocurrency market movements. It is doubtful we will see a major Bitcoin price correction anytime soon, but minor dips like this one could still occur over the coming weeks. It shouldn’t take much effort for the Bitcoin price to start recovering, as there is a lot of support in place to keep its price around the same mark.
