Bitcoin price weekly analysis 18 June: A quieter week as the market takes stock
It's been a steadier week as trading volumes fall and bitcoin prices hold at around US$6,500.
Key takeaways
- Bitcoin is relatively steady, losing less than 5% after a couple of weeks of heavy losses.
- Trading volumes are down as buyers stay away.
- Italian authorities seize bitcoin after an exchange hack.
After the last couple of weeks, the loss of "just" 4.6% over the last seven days looks like a good result for bitcoin. Last week saw BTC drop from around US$7,700 to US$6,700, but we lost around US$200 over the last seven days to sit at around US$6,486 at the time of writing.
The price did fall to around US$6,300 late last week but increased market activity saw a few buyers come out of the woodwork with volumes breaching US$5.1 billion during a 24-hour trading period. That pushed the price up to around US$6,700, where it has sat since Friday with 24-hour trading volumes dipping to around US$3.1 billion.
There have been a few small green candles, with the largest lit early on Friday morning and a smaller one about 48 hours later.
The big news on the bitcoin front is the seizure of bitcoin from BitGrail accounts by Italian authorities. FXStreet reports on the following official statement on BitGrail's website: "On June 5, 2018, pursuant to the Tribunal of Florence orders, the Bitcoins contained in the company's wallets were seized and brought under control of the judicial authorities pending further Court decisions in the prebankruptcy proceeding."
It's incidents like this that seem to spook the markets, particular when it comes to getting institutional and "mum and dad" traders from engaging in cryptocurrency markets.
The US$6,000 level is critical according to NewsBTC. They say a dip below this value will likely see the price plummet to around US$3,000 – that's a long way from the US$20,000 level we saw just a few months ago.
Cryptoslate agrees with this, although they are a little less pessimistic, saying US$5,000 is a more likely rally point than US$3,000. FXStreet has picked the middle point, US$4,000, as the next critical level.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author holds BTC, EOS, ETH, ETH, STR, LTC, TRX, BCC, ADA, XRP and GAS.
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