2018 seems to be an incredibly disillusioning year for both bitcoin and its ilks. Since the start of the year, BTC has been heading downwards, losing over $11,000 in price (which is about 65% of its value) between January 6 and February 6. Today, bitcoin’s rate has dropped to its lowest in more than two months.
Getting Low
On February 6, bitcoin has broken a 2018 anti-record of $5,947. Moreover, it is the lowest rate which has been seen since around November 13, 2017, for the last time. The data is taken from the Coidesk, which traces prices from four largest cyber money trading platforms.
Our top trading bots
At the moment of writing, bitcoin is being traded at $6,300 as it has lost around 19% of its value within the past 24 hours, according to another website, which tracks crypto capitalizations, Coinmarketcap.com.
As CNBC reports, concerning this descent, BTC has lost over 50% for the year.
Notably, at the beginning of 2017 bitcoin’s price was fixed at the rate of $1,000, and by the end of the year, it reached the pick of $20,000. Since mid-December 2017 till now bitcoin has dropped in price three fold.
There have already been raised ‘bubble talks’ regarding bitcoin around January 17, when it fell to the margin of $10,000, also for the first time since late November. However, this time the decline is much more disappointing than ever.
Having started falling on February 2, reaching the low of $8,000, bitcoin continued slumping on February 5 and 6. However, in the monthly graph, BTC’s decline looks sweeping rather than drastic.
Market Responding By Sinking in Red
Apparently, it is not the only bitcoin which keeps tumbling. Traditionally, bitcoin’s brethren – altcoins – follow its lead in sinking in red. In the top-100 list of cryptocurrencies, presented by Coinmarketcap.com, all coins are colored red and show a 1-30% decline on February 6, except for E-coin. This alternative currency is demonstrating a breathtaking growth of 491% at the moment of writing.
It is also remarkable that on the whole, the crypto market has not been showing positive traits in evolving within the past time. Since January 8 the total market cap lost around 63% of its value, decreasing to $300 billion on February 6 from last month’s margin of $829.4 billion.
Any Possible Reasons?
There could be named a plethora of factors which could have caused such a decline in the whole crypto market. For example, recent sell-off reports have brought up concerns about tightening regulation of the market by various governments, including China and South Korea, malware and hacker attacks, e.g., Coincheck’s case, as well as probable price manipulation by influential crypto exchange Bitfinex.
On February 2, when bitcoin started going downwards more radically in comparison to the preceding week, several major American banks announced their decision to bar their customers from buying this digital asset using credit cards. Later, the group of bitcoin-unfriendly financial institutions was joined by the UK’s Lloyds bank. All of that was done, as banks notified, in order to prevent unaffordable debts when cryptos lose their value.
Things started hitting up on Monday after Chinese media reported about government’s plan to block the use of foreign crypto exchanges by its citizens.
But what is spectacular is that simultaneously with the crypto market, on February 2 the first signs of correction started showing the traditional stock market, reaching its pick at the start of the current week. According to Reuters, on February 5, Dow closed down more than 1,100 points, whereas S&P 500 ended down over 4%.
BREAKING: Dow closes down more than 1,100 points, S&P 500 ends down more than 4 percent pic.twitter.com/3t3bFaDzex
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) 5 February 2018
JUST IN: U.S. stock index futures extend losses, Dow Jones futures down over 400 points pic.twitter.com/OeCp9kKPru
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) 6 February 2018
