Home / Archive / Bitcoin Price Hits Record $5,000 Traders Initiate Sell-Off as Price Drops $400

Bitcoin Price Hits Record $5,000 Traders Initiate Sell-Off as Price Drops $400

Last Updated
Josiah Wilmoth
Last Updated

Bitcoin price touched the $5,000 mark for the first time this week, confirming Max Keiser’s prediction that it would reach that milestone this week. However, this achievement triggered a sell-off, causing the bitcoin price to pull back to its early-week levels.

After finally breaking through the $4,500 wall earlier in the week, the bitcoin price began to soar. On September 1, bitcoin flew past $4,800, and by the morning of September 2, it appeared poised to challenge the $5,000 mark.

And that it did. Around 1:00 UTC, the bitcoin price leaped over $4,900 and continued to rise. At 2:00 UTC, bitcoin touched $5,000 on several exchanges–including OKCoin–although its CoinMarketCap average topped out at $4,975.

bitcoin price
BTC Price Chart from Bitstamp

However, once it touched that mark traders initiated a massive sell-off. Within a couple hours, the bitcoin price has plunged to about $4,600 on Bitstamp. The movement was even more drastic on Bitfinex, where it dropped as low as $4,550.

Over the next few days, we will get a clearer picture of whether this sell-off is a blip on the trajectory of the bitcoin price or the beginning of a price correction. Goldman Sachs’ chief technical analyst Sheba Jafari had recently forecasted that bitcoin would edge past $4,800 and then crash to $2,200. Jafari’s analysis relies on Elliot wave theory , and other analysts believe bitcoin has a more bullish short-term future.

Ronnie Moas of Standpoint Research recently raised his mid-2018 price target to $7,500, and he stated that he anticipates that bitcoin will reach $20,000 by 2020. Last night, Max Keiser raised his interim price target to $10,000.

No matter what route the bitcoin price takes in the coming days, touching $5,000 is a major achievement . And as Keiser alluded to in the above tweet, investors are increasingly turning to cryptocurrency as a safe haven for their assets.

At the time of writing, the bitcoin price was trading at an average of $4,632, which represents a 24-hour decline of 4% but a 7-day rise of 7%. Bitcoin’s market cap, which briefly surpassed $82 billion last night, is now $76.6 billion.

Table of Contents
    Josiah is the former U.S. Editor at CCN.com, where he focused on financial markets. He lives in rural Virginia. Connect with him on LinkedIn  or email him directly at josiah.wilmoth(at)www.ccn.com.
    See more