Bitcoin prices rallied this morning, rising nearly 8% in under 30 minutes.
Bitcoin prices spiked this morning, climbing close to 8% in a matter of minutes at a time when the market has been experiencing low volatility and modest trading volumes.
The digital currency reached as much as $7767.91 around 8:20 a.m. EST, having climbed 7.7% in less than 30 minutes, CoinDesk figures show.
Upon reaching this daily high, the cryptocurrency had risen 9.5% from the daily low of $7091.31 it reached around 3 a.m. EST, additional CoinDesk data reveals.
[Ed note: Investing in cryptocoins or tokens is highly speculative and the market is largely unregulated. Anyone considering it should be prepared to lose their entire investment.]
A Vulnerable Market
When explaining bitcoin’s recent rally, several analysts emphasized the market’s current state, noting that its lackluster trading volume left it vulnerable to large traders making sizable transactions.
“As I write this morning, today's price spike does seem a bit suspicious,” said Mati Greenspan, founder of the newsletter Quantum Economics.
He pointed to “the sudden movement on an otherwise uneventful day, the low volumes across exchanges, the quick retracement after the move.”
“It all points to the assumption that this was the outcome of a single player with a large buy order. Or in other words... a large whale stacking sats.”
Tim Enneking, managing director of Digital Capital Management, offered a similar perspective.
“With this unusually low volume crypto markets have experienced, any single, large transaction has an [outsize] impact,” he stated.
“This is true both because the transaction itself will affect markets and because, in the absence of other signals, market watchers overreact to such a transaction and exaggerate the move, regardless of direction,” said Enneking.
Range-Bound Trading
Since experiencing its sharp rally this morning, the digital currency has fallen back into its prior pattern, spending much of the day moving primarily between $7,400 and $7,500, CoinDesk figures reveal.
“In the absence of any catalysts,” the market will continue this behavior, said Joe DiPasquale, CEO of cryptocurrency hedge fund manager BitBull Capital.
Further, bitcoin prices will fluctuate “based on technical factors,” he added, predicting that it will keep “bouncing from oversold zones and being declined at resistance levels, which are currently at $7,500 and $8,000.”
Disclosure: I own some bitcoin, bitcoin cash, litecoin, ether and EOS.
