The cryptocurrency market has been trading sideways in the last 24-hour period, starting the day at about $202 billion and staying at about the same level until now. This, after bitcoin dropped over 5% in a matter of minutes this week, while top altcoins dropped over 12%.
At press time, bitcoin is trading at $6,260 after managing to hold onto the $6,200 level. When the cryptocurrency’s price faced its sudden drop, various analysts believed it would once again be testing its $6,000 support – a possibility that’s still on the table.
In the last 24 hours the flagship cryptocurrency lost 0.28% of its value, according to CryptoCompare data.
The cryptocurrency’s drop also came shortly after blockchain analysis software company Chainalysis found that bitcoin whales – its largest holders -are a “diverse group that may be stabilizing, rather than destabilizing, the market.” Another report by Juniper Research claimed the market is on the “brink of an implosion.”
Technical indicators aren’t on BTC’s side as well. As reported, the Directional Movement Index has seen its ADX, which determines the strength of a trend, hit a bottom and start moving up, implying the cryptocurrency’s downward trend is gathering momentum.
The drop, some believe, was associated with a broader sell-off that saw US stocks have their worst decline since February, leading the S&P 500 to lows it hadn’t seen since July. According to MarketWatch, however, Element Digital Asset Management portfolio director Thejas Naval and the firm’s director of quantitative research Kevin Lu stated:
There’s a narrative that the crypto market was simply falling in lockstep with the equity markets, which are slowly entering into correction zones. We believe this move in cryptocurrencies had nothing to do with the stock market
Per their words “evidence has shown there has been little correlation between global stock indexes and the price of bitcoin.”
Ether Shorts Hit New Highs
As MarketWatch points out, shorts against Ethereum’s ether have recently hit a new all-time high, as according to Bitfinex data on Trading View there are over 300,000 outstanding ether shorts, which translates to over $60 million of short interest.
Despite the outstanding short interest, the cryptocurrency has been having a seemingly above average day when compared to other cryptos. Data shows it’s currently up 0.7% in the last 24-hour period as it’s trading at $199.4.
Other top cryptocurrencies like EOS, litecoin, and bitcoin cash are up by less than half a percent. TRX, as covered, surged after the CEO of the TRON Foundation Justin Sun tweeted about a forthcoming partnership with an ‘industry giant’.
Top altcoins in the red include monero, ethereum classic, and NEO, which are all down between 0.1% and 1%. The XRP token dropped 2% in the last 24 hours to about $0.418.
