Even by its own tumultuous standards, Bitcoin has had a turbulent month. Investors were rejoicing a profitable April, with prices at the start of May being around $5,500. By May 14, the cryptocurrency had increased more than 50% to reach $8,000. It even made a pass at $8,300, but the bulls lost momentum and prices saw their biggest intraday loss in more than a year, tumbling $1,700 on Friday, May 17, trading as low as $6,178.
While this kind of drop would have been enough to see further drops in the past 12 months, such is the positive sentiment surrounding Bitcoin at the moment, that the digital currency has made up the vast majority of those losses. The bulls are knocking at $8,000 resistance with the hope of pushing through and heading further. BTC prices have been wavering around this mark for most of the day, and Bitcoin is trading at $8,042.88 at 21:30 GMT.
Although many traders point to last week’s price drop as being corrective, with Bitcoin having been registering as overbought for some time, others believe that a single trade caused the
As is typical in the cryptocurrency space, many altcoins followed Bitcoin’s lead. Ethereum, despite being on the receiving end of positive rumours suggesting that Samsung will offer Ethereum backed crypto facilities on their budget handsets, saw a similarly sharp decline and proceeding recovery.
A number of media outlets are reporting that the recent increase could be driven by Trump’s increasing trade hostilities with China. They argue that where gold was once the alternative store of wealth during global challenges, Bitcoin has taken its place, and recent rises have certainly coincided with Trump introducing more tariffs on Chinese products, and even indirectly causing Google to stop offering support to Huawei engineers. If this logic is to be followed, further escalation between the USA and China would prove positive for Bitcoin prices, while a resolution of the
Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading at $8,005.12, a 1.91% increase in the past 24 hours. Ethereum (ETH) has risen 2.75% and is now trading at $256.17 and Ripple (XRP) has seen a 1.03% improvement to $0.399. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has been the best performing cryptocurrency in the past 24 hours, posting a 4.3% gain and reaching $422.74. EOS, currently the 5th largest currency, rose 1.47% and is trading at $6.33 at 21:50 GMT.
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