The past week was a hard time for Bitcoin as the cryptocurrency slid off from app. $7,500 to losing short of $1,000 in a matter of a day. However, despite the rumors of a Bitcoin whale unloading $1 billion worth of coins, there is no confirmation that the big price slide was triggered by a sale of big amounts of BTC from a single wallet.
In fact, according to Market Watch, Bitcoin did better in the past week than other popular cryptocurrencies. Namely, yesterday Bitcoin traded only 1.1% lower than Monday, or 14% less than at the beginning of this month, while other cryptocurrencies suffered bigger loses during that same day and the week in general.
Ether, for instance, dropped to a low it hasn’t touched for 14 months – a price point of only $176. Bitcoin Cash, on the other hand, dropped 6.5% from Monday to Tuesday, hitting a price of $434.40, while Litecoin came close behind, losing 5.6% and dropping to $50.82. In total, the cryptocurrency market value dropped below $190 million – something we haven’t seen since November last year.
Bears Hold Market
Like we discussed in our previous update, Bitcoin suffered a sell-off during the past week, although not for the reasons everyone suspected. The highest price point during the last seven days was reached right after midnight on Thursday morning, when Bitcoin still held a price of $6,951.04. But past that point Bitcoin’s value began to slide, reaching an eventual weekly low of $6,205.97 by Saturday evening.
From our market charts, we can conclude that the price correction was helped by an increase in trading volume which came close to $6 billion as Bitcoin’s value began to fall sharply. Since then, the 24-volume has subsided and is now moving around $4 billion. Understandably, as the price dropped so did Bitcoin’s market capitalization, which now sits at $108.8 billion.
Our technical analysis shows that the market is quite bearish, with 6 out of 12 oscillators and all 12 moving averages sending selling signals. The SMA 100 has also dropped below the SMA 200, showing us there is less resistance to the downward course. If the $6,000 support is broken, we could see a further slide downwards. So keep your eyes on the market for any breaks below this range.
Crypto-Companies to Lobby in Washington
In other interesting news, while the price of Bitcoin is suffering weaker interest this year, a group of officials from the industry are gearing up to launch a cryptocurrency offensive over Washington D.C. Despite Bitcoin behaving nothing like it did in 2017 when it grew beyond anyone’s imagination, a group of lobbyists isn’t waiting for another surge in interest before trying to charm regulators who’ve shown interest in the cryptocurrency sector, the Washington Post reports.
According to the news agency, this Tuesday a group of veterans from the tech industry and major cryptocurrency businesses announced that they are forming a new entity called the Blockchain Association. Reportedly, the association is formed to serve as a lobbying group in Washington D.C. that will represent investors and entrepreneurs alike which are using blockchain technology.
At present, some of the members of the lobbying group are Circle and Coinbase – two of the biggest cryptocurrencies exchanges across the globe – but also investors like Polychain Capital and the Digital Currency Group. As reports suggest, the main objective of the group would be to lobby on policy issues in D.C. and serve as a voice for mainstream businesses that welcome regulation but not ones that aim to circumvent it.