Wednesday, Dec. 5: All but one of the top 20 cryptocurrencies registered losses in the last 24 hours, Bitcoin (BTC) lost most of its recent gains, sinking below $3,800.
Market visualization from Coin360.io
Bitcoin started the day near $4,000 and continued to fall until it reached its current price of $3,769, down 4.37 percent on the day. On its weekly chart, BTC is at its lowest point in the past seven days.
Bitcoin 7-day chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
The co-founder of advisory firm Fundstrat, Tom Lee, provided three reasons behind the collapse of the crypto market: the controversial Bitcoin Cash (BCH) hard fork, recent actions undertaken by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which forced Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) to return funds to investors, and the “terrible” conditions in global markets.
Ripple (XRP), the second crypto by total market capitalization, is currently trading around $0.339, down 3.6 percent in the past 24 hours. The current price of the native XRP coin is the lowest registered this week, down from nearly $0.40 seven days ago.
XRP 7-day chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
Ethereum (ETH) is still the third cryptocurrency by market capitalization after losing nearly 6 percent in the past 24 hours. At press time ETH is trading at $103.58, which is the lowest price point reported by the asset in the last seven days.
Ethereum 7-day chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
Among the top 20 cryptocurrencies, the only ones reporting double-digit losses are Bitcoin Cash (-12.29 percent), Zcash (-10.11 percent) and Maker (-11.12 percent). The only gainer in the considered group is Binance Coin, which is up 3.66 percent on the day.
Total market capitalization of the cryptocurrency market is around $121.2 billion as of press time, the lowest point in the last seven days and down from $146.5 billion on Nov. 29.
Total market capitalization 7-day chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
As Bloomberg reported today, “Bitcoin is turning negative again” and, according to their experts, “prices for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are likely to weaken.” Bloomberg analyst Mike McGlone predicted in a note past Wednesday that Bitcoin will fall to around $1,500.
CEO of Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Quoine Mike Kayamori is more positive, stating in an interview yesterday that BTC will see new all-time-highs by the end of 2019, while admitting there’s “no catalyst” to drive prices back up in the near future.