Bitcoin Price Struggles to Mount Recovery as Chinese New Year Saps Trading Volumes
Chinese New Year could be sapping trading volume out of the crypto market. | Source: Shutterstock
Heading into Thursday evening, the cryptocurrency market continues to feel uncomfortably quiet, with the Bitcoin price consolidating below $3,400 during the final days of the Chinese New Year celebration — an event that some analysts say is depressing crypto trading volumes.
In the altcoin markets, Bitcoin SV staged a pivot back above $60, still failing to recapture its former #10 position in market capitalization. Basic Attention Token jumped 10% today. Ethereum hasn’t done much either way. Is the pricing of most tokens about to become much more accessible to retail investors? From where we stand today, there’s not much evidence to the contrary.
On a side note, as discussed yesterday, Ripple made an announcement this morning – but it failed to boost the XRP price.
Bitcoin Price Consolidates Below $3,400
Bitcoin has two main markets that this column tracks. One is Coinbase and the other is Bitfinex. They represent good opposites of each other. Bitfinex is an elder statesman in the game of professional crypto trading, while Coinbase captures much of the onboarding and retail market.
For most of the morning, Bitfinex successfully kept its price quite a bit higher than Coinbase. Then around 12:00, things began to crumble, and at one point Bitfinex had a lower price than Coinbase. This didn’t hold, however, but now the prices are closer to each other: $3,456 on Bitfinex and $3,358 on Coinbase.
Ethereum Price Flirts with Sub-$100 Level
In the absence of a positive push, a lack of overall dumping is a plus. Is $100-range Ethereum a long-term reality, or can we expect a rebound when the network upgrade goes through next month?
One thing is for sure, we’ve yet to see the truly killer dApp built on the ecosystem. Telegram’s Ethereum alternative is set to go into testnet next month. Its pre-sale market capitalization already puts it in the top 10. Could we witness it in steep competition with Ethereum? We’ve seen this story before. The only best way to view it from a trader’s perspective is to be open to the possibility.
Bitcoin SV Mounts a Recovery
Bitcoin SV briefly dropped below $60 yesterday, but quickly executed a rebounding push.
Through the day’s trading it’s managed to stay above its new “support.” Still, a return to former glory feels unlikely. When Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash are both struggling, BSV seems to struggle harder. Both BCH and BSV are working hard to develop an ecosystem for developers that offers advantages over Bitcoin itself, but the value in that has yet to be determined in a market sense.
That being the case, a decision to pick up a Bitcoin SV bag at this point is a philosophical decision. If you believe in the “vision,” then there’s probably not going to be better opportunities moving forward.
Brave’s BAT Token Picks up Steam
The Basic Attention Token picked up steam in the past 24 hours, to the tune of almost 10% in some markets.
Interest in the token has been renewed recently as Brave browser has begun its final push into stable development. Coinbase recently launched a program to give away $10 in BAT to people who completed an educational challenge on their earn.com platform.
Some publications including CCN.com are perturbed by the idea of a browser offering advertising but blocking the ads that actually keep the sites running.
Featured Image from Shutterstock. Price Charts from TradingView .
