Reuters
- Bitcoin fell on Friday, as investors profited from the volatile trading week.
- The cryptocurrency fell as much as 11%, to $ 34,409.04, at intraday lows.
- The slide closes the second most volatile week for bitcoin in the past three years. Busy trades saw the token rise to $ 41,440 and fall to $ 30,324.
- The week also saw more voices rejecting cryptocurrency as a dangerous market bubble.
- Billionaire investor Mark Cuban compared it to Internet stocks in the dot-com era, and European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde called it a “highly speculative asset that generated some funny deals”.
- Watch the bitcoin trade live here.
Bitcoin plummeted on Friday, when less volatile trades pulled prices below $ 35,000 after clearing $ 40,000 the day before.
B cryptocurrency fell as much as 11%, to $ 34,409.04, on intraday lows. The hectic price of the week saw the cryptocurrency rise to $ 41,440 and fall to $ 30,324. The foam on the market was the second most volatile week in the past three years.
After surpassing its 2017 peak in December and doubling to almost $ 42,000 in the new year, bitcoin has fluctuated as investors consider securing profits against losing additional earnings. The token is currently traded about 25% more in the year, but about 11% below the record in early January.
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A growing chorus of voices called the crypto trade a bubble over the week, comparing it to the dot-com boom of the 1990s. Billionaire businessman Mark Cuban said the token was traded “just like the Internet stock bubble”, which reached extreme ratings before breaking down in the early 2000s.
European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, who sees a digital euro becoming a reality in the coming years, said this week that Bitcoin is not a currency, but a “highly speculative asset that has driven some funny deals”.
Strategists have also cracked down on some of the hype surrounding the bitcoin rally.
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“Wall Street just drools over the word ‘cryptography’ whenever it sees it without understanding any of it. It’s no surprise that Wall Street does that, as anything that shows an exponential price increase would attract its interest,” Michael Every, a strategist global Rabobank said.
Technical analysts said the price is fluctuating between support levels that could pave the way for record highs or a much deeper pullback. The bitcoin Relative Strength Index – which tracks momentum over the past 14 days – has only recently dropped below levels, indicating that the token was overbought.
“While $ 35,000 can be an interesting test, the only level that really matters is $ 30,000. A breach of that could trigger a much sharper correction,” said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda Europe.
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