Bitcoin falls below $10,000 again, takes ETH and XRP with it
ETH and XRP didn't take much part in Bitcoin's recent rises, but they're definitely feeling the fall.
Bitcoin has broken the psychological $10,000 barrier. Unfortunately, it was going in the wrong direction at the time.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is hanging slightly north of the $10,000 line, pondering which way to go next.
Observable stuff includes the following:
- ETH (dark blue) takes a hard plunge on Bitstamp, in synchronisation with Bitcoin (gold line) and XRP (light blue).
- Bitcoin was allergic to the $9,000 range, and only stayed for a few minutes. It's too early to tell whether it will rise back, but this isn't dissimilar from the last time Bitcoin briefly crossed under $10,000 a couple of weeks ago.
- There have been several exceptionally sharp simultaneous plunges across BTC, ETH and XRP in recent days, and the markets are more in synch now than before. Altcoins weren't really rising with Bitcoin, but they're definitely falling.
There's no clear reason for the fall, but the following are some theories that are being thrown around:
- It's a delayed reaction from the US president's lambasting of cryptocurrencies.
- It's uneasiness from the ongoing Bitfinex/Tether-NYOAG proceedings.
- It's straight-up profit taking and readjustment after prices went too high too fast.
- It's deliberate or accidental manipulation.
Which?
There was no immediate response from the markets in the face of the president's anti-crypto declaration, and you'd probably expect an immediate shock if the two were related. That said, it wasn't too long afterwards that the markets started running downwards. It could be that some whales woke up shortly afterwards and pulled the trigger.
And some unease may be warranted given Tether's prominent position in the markets, and the nature of the ongoing proceedings. The next date to watch there is 22 July, which is the deadline for Bitfinex to file a response to the NYOAG's latest salvo.
(Probably) coincidentally, 22 July is also the planned launch date for Bakkt's highly-anticipated Bitcoin futures.
The pace and scale of the price dumps in previous days, in a series of distinctive downwards steps, suggests the usual whale action is taking place. This was clearly on display recently, with a dramatic flash crash of Ethereum on Bitstamp yesterday.
This is similar to some of the previous whale moves seen as prices were nearing their highs, including some examples of massive market sells that instantly push down the price. Cleaning out orderbooks certainly isn't the most cost-effective way to dispose of coins, which fuels speculation that these sales are either from people trying to run ahead of an imminently plunging market or from people who are happy to waste a lot of money in the short term if it means pushing prices down.
It's also possible that some of the recent market moves can be attributed to the introduction of margin trading at Binance and elsewhere.
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Disclosure: The author holds BNB and BTC at the time of writing.
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