After the expiration of the largest options in history, bitcoin ended its fifth week of bounces around the $ 9,000 price range.
Bitcoin (BTC) was trading at around $ 9,180 at 20:00 UTC (4 pm ET), dropping nearly 1% in the past 24 hours.
At 00:00 UTC on Friday (8:00 pm Thursday ET), bitcoin was changing hands around $ 9,300 on spot exchanges like Bitstamp. After reaching Friday’s high of $ 9,291, Bitcoin failed to bounce back from Thursday’s selloff at $ 8,990 from $ 9,650 and continued to trade hands between $ 9,000 and $ 9,200.
Thursday’s trading volume was only slightly lower than Wednesday, the two largest trading days for Coinbase’s bitcoin spot volume at $ 126 million and $ 124 million, respectively. By Friday, the volume on Coinbase is $ 84 million, according to Skew.
The slight drop in volume on Friday is not surprising given its price action since early Thursday morning. In addition to the long expiration of bitcoin options, Thursday is statistically the most volatile day of the week with the highest trading volume, according to research by cryptocurrency data firm Market Science. Friday’s volume and volatility generally decline, leading to a quiet weekend for the crypto market.
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Bitcoin continues to outperform the S&P 500, and is 21 percentage points higher for the year to date than the leading equity index. But the close correlation between Bitcoin and traditional markets is unlikely to break soon. “Bitcoin is likely to remain highly correlated with equities until a more stable environment is established,” said Joseph Todaro, managing partner at Blocktown Capital.
For some analysts, the innovative cryptocurrency’s inability to top $ 10,000 indicates a possible loss of bullish momentum. After multiple attempts, Bitcoin is not breaking $ 10,000 “showing how weak it is right now,” said João Leite, principal analyst at cryptocurrency research firm Blockfyre, speaking of buying interest in bitcoin.
Meanwhile, the major stock indices fell mainly on Friday.
The Nikkei 225 of Japanese listed companies opened 0.6% higher than Thursday’s close and gained almost 0.4% during trading hours on Friday. The index’s gains come despite fears from the US markets about a continued rise in coronavirus cases.
The FTSE 100 Index in Europe fell approximately more than 1% from its daily opening at the time of publication. Since Monday, the index has fallen approximately 2 percent.
The U.S. S&P 500 Index fell more than 2% on Friday as of press time. A recent surge in coronavirus cases in many states is likely to cause the market to return earnings on Thursday, when the index rose 1.3 percent.
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Ether, (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, rose 1.5% on Friday, trading around $ 229 and after dropping 10% in 24 hours on Wednesday and holding below $ 235 on Thursday, according to operations at BitMEX.
Selling ether and relatively flat price action in the second half of the week could be the start of a correction amid ongoing speculative fervor about “performance farming” in the decentralized cryptocurrency app finance ecosystem .
According to Darren Lau, a market research analyst at CoinGecko, it appears that “everyone is making money right now, and it has been easy.” But for him, it is becoming “too easy” and a correction could be imminent. However, it could be more than a price drop, Lau added. If the “agricultural yield” trend fades as the price of ether falls, “how many farms are going to collapse as well,” he asked. Responding to his own question, Lau said he expects “a bigger chain reaction than Black Thursday” due to the closely intertwined nature of each decentralized funding application.
Other markets
Relevant digital assets for decentralized financial investors were mostly higher on Friday. Augur (REP) was up 3%, Syntixix (SNX) was up 3.3%, Nexo (NEXO) was up nearly 5%, and 0x (ZRX) was up more than 6 percent, according to market data from Messari. All price changes were from 20:00 UTC (4:00 pm ET).
See also: The rise of e-commerce COVID-19 has not been reduced to Bitcoin, despite the advantages
In commodities, gold recovered to a daily gain of 0.15% after falling more than 1% during the afternoon trading hours. The yellow metal is trading around $ 1,768 as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 pm ET).
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