Over the last few days, the price of Bitcoin has been going downhill ever since the bearish valuations at the launch of CME’s Bitcoin futures last Sunday. Taking a $3,000 plunge due to the introduction of Bitcoin Cash to Coinbase, the prices of the infamously volatile cryptocurrency did not just stop there. On Friday, it dipped below $11,000, shedding over 30% of its value in under 24 hours, according to Coindesk.com.
Compared to the all-time high of $19,800 on Sunday, Bitcoin’s latest low is almost half of that number. As institutional investors start to pour into the world of digital currencies, Bitcoin has fallen for six days straight – its longest losing streak since September.
Nevertheless, Bitcoin’s price has still increased more than 1,000% in the year of 2017.
SOURCE: Coindesk.com
This week has been a rough week for cryptocurrencies. Earlier this week, South Korea-based virtual currency exchange, YouBit was forced to shut down all operations due to another cyber-attack, the second one in the span of 8 months. During the attack in April, cyber-thieves managed to steal 38 billion won ($35 million) in cryptocurrencies.
Then, on Thursday, Coinbase, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platforms, suspended all trading activities due to suspicions of insider trading. This incident happened right after Bitcoin spinoff Bitcoin Cash was added to Coinbase’s platform.
Major Correction or Market Crash?
The mass decline in cryptocurrency prices has received different reactions from market speculators. Most agree that Bitcoin is just taking a breather – a price correction – after a bullish run in 2017.
“A correction like we are witnessing today is hardly surprising,” said Dave Chapman, managing director of Hong Kong cryptocurrency trading platform Octagon Strategy.
Twitter users also pointed out that this wasn’t the first time Bitcoin had a price correction of over 30% this year.
Bitcoin has declined 34% over the past 4 days, its 5th 30+% correction of the year. $BTC.X pic.twitter.com/Tc9SuzU6FU
— Charlie Bilello (@charliebilello) December 22, 2017
https://twitter.com/robertreidmd/status/944208162630000641
There were also some bearish views about Bitcoin’s latest price correction. Michael Novogratz, former Goldman Sachs partner and Fortress Investment Group trader told Bloomberg News that he believes that Bitcoin could go as low as $8,000. Novogratz, who is arguably one of Bitcoin’s largest bulls, had an entirely different opinion in an interview with CNBC last month.
“Bitcoin could be at $40,000 at the end of 2018. It easily could,” Michael Novogratz said on CNBC’s “Fast Money” in November.
What do you think? Will Bitcoin recover from its latest crash, or will it fall past the $10,000 mark?