Commodity Blog

After securing a new Bitstamp all-time high at $2,980 (third breakout in less than a month) bitcoin started off with a $300 price correction on Monday, before plummeting to a new weekly low of $2,480. A trading range between $2,700 and $2,800 was briefly held before the final bottom was reached.

The psychological $3,000 barrier was broken on countless other exchanges such as BitMEX, Okcoin, and Huobi but failed to materialize a breakout above that level on predominately US dollar denominated trading sites such as Kraken, GDAX, and Bitfinex.

GDAX also symbolically hit $2,999.99 which was strangely close to a push into the 3000s.

BTC-e was plagued by a DDoS attack on Monday which has still yet to be resolved:

We are currently under ddos #btce

— BTC-E (@btcecom) June 12, 2017

The exchange is currently inaccessible as of this writing even though a new all-time high was set at $2,889.49.

Bitfinex encountered similar problems today but stated that operations were to resume with additional monitoring:

The platform is under DDoS attack. We are enabling a stricter protection level.

— Bitfinex.com (@bitfinex) June 13, 2017

Furthermore the price decline coincided with the numerous OKCoin position increases/reductions, a likely factor contributing to further market volatility:

OKcoin top #1 $BTCUSD contract holder has increased their position by 24276 contracts

— WhaleCalls (@whalecalls) June 13, 2017

OKcoin top #2 $BTCUSD contract holder has increased their position by 24381 contracts

— WhaleCalls (@whalecalls) June 13, 2017

OKcoin top #3 $BTCUSD contract holder has decreased their position by 21437 contracts

— WhaleCalls (@whalecalls) June 13, 2017

Ethereum has substantially climbed in market cap since yesterday’s flash crash, securing an increase of more than 50% in only one week ($24 billion to $38 billion respectively). It is highly probable that this rapid growth was at the expense of bitcoin and could have partially contributed to bitcoins price drop on Monday. (as a hedge against bitcoin by key market participants)

The bitcoin market cap had been growing steadily during that same period ($45 billion to $49 billion) until Monday, when market activity resulted in a drop to a level that was $120 million below the previous $42 billion. It has since then held close to a $45 billion dollar market valuation despite daily fluctuations.

Another factor that may have additionally contributed to the bitcoin price drop is the ethereum based Bancor ICO, which raised close to $150 million on Monday, and may have been the source of subsequent price volatility for both crypto currencies.

BTC/USD started trading at $2,980 as of 04:40 GMT on Sunday until a new weekly low was achieved the following day on Monday 17:35 GMT at $2,480.01. Tuesday saw a run-up to $2,778 that failed to break-out further and resulted in a two day trading range between the new weekly low and last run-up price.

If you have any questions and comments on bitcoin today, use the form below to reply.