Bitcoin Plummets as Bears Take Control

bitcoin

The retracement that many investors were quietly hoping wouldn’t happen, happened. Having reached a peak of nearly $14,000 on Wednesday, the bears came out in force on Thursday, sending Bitcoin (BTC) down towards the $10,000 mark before rallying to $10,810.0, down 21.23% on the day.

In a hostile day of trading, the largest of the cryptocurrencies fell almost $1,000 in a frantic 20 minute period. At one point Bitcoin fell as low as $10,346 (Coinbase Data).

Thursday is asking serious questions of the crypto world. Crypto has surged this year, following a year of consolidation in 2018. Recently, Bitcoin and other digital currencies were boosted by the Facebook Libra coin effect. Mark Zuckerberg’s entry into the crypto sphere provided the ultimate validation. Meanwhile, the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) factor well and truly kicked in. Investors have been once more asking the question of how to invest in Bitcoin.

Now, with two days of extreme losses recorded, the bulls have been pushed back and the bears are in control. Overall, the crypto market has lost approximately $80 billion over the past 24 hours and rising. The charts show a sea of red with Bitcoin leading the way losses.

Ethereum saw a 17% decline, valuing ETH/USD at $290.20. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was one of the biggest losers of the day, down 20.52% at time of writing with BCH/USD trading at $407.90. Elsewhere, Litecoin (LTC) is down 15.48% and EOS/USD down 20.35%.

Coinbase Outage

As the price of Bitcoin plunged over $1,700 in just 15 minutes on Wednesday, Coinbase experienced a brief outage, with both its website and API down. During this period, trading app Robinhood also reported having issues with its crypto trading services.

The interrupted services from some of the largest exchanges fueled the volatility as panic set in for some investors.

Whilst stabilizing a little now, the next 48 hours may turn out to be crucial for Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency world.

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