Bitcoin Price Sticks To Volatility, Not To Its Peak. Ten Things To Know

As the speculative price jump of bitcoin ahead of its futures launch by the US-based exchanges CBOE and CME Group abates, the bitcoin price has started sliding with almost same alacrity with which they rose early this month. At 11 am, the most popular cryptocurrency on Thursday was priced at $16,685 on Coindesk, though it opened a little over $17,000. At the Luxembourg-based BitStamp, the bitcoin was priced at $16,751 (Rs. 10.72 lakh), though it hit $17,101 in past 24 hours and sank to the lowest point of $16,100. On Indian bitcoin wallet Zebpay, a bitcoin can be purchased for Rs. 11,30,821 which is equivalent to $17,670 (at USD rate of Rs. 64).
Ten things to know about bitcoin’s mind boggling volatility in prices

1. Bitcoin fell more than 10 percent on Wednesday to a one-week low of $15,800 at cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp , losing almost one- fifth of its value from a peak hit just three days ago.

2. Bitcoin has been sliding since it reached a record high of $19,666 on Sunday, when the exchange giant CME Group launched bitcoin futures, one week after its rival Cboe Global Markets listed the world’s first bitcoin futures.

“The listing of two bitcoin futures makes it easier for institutional players to trade bitcoins. Futures also enable players to go short on bitcoins, which was difficult without liquid futures,” said Makoto Sakuma, researcher at NLI Research Institute in Tokyo.

3. The bitcoin’s rapid gains this year – its price has soared about 19 times – have spurred caution and alarm among some policymakers.

4. The cryptocurrencies have been under intense pressure and have the downside bias because of a spate of warnings issued by central banks and policy makers worldwide

5. Singapore’s central bank early this week issued a warning against investment in cryptocurrencies, saying it considers the recent surge in their prices to be driven by speculation and that the risk of a sharp fall in prices is high.

6. South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service said on Tuesday it does not consider bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to be currencies of any kind.

7. Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said on Tuesday that bitcoin had not been proven as a credible currency. However, for Japanese retail investors who are estimated to account for 30 to 50 percent of bitcoin trade worldwide, a more worrying warning may have come from a Japanese day trader guru known as Cis. The individual trader, who claims to own 21 billion yen ($186 million) in assets, tweeted over the last 24 hours that he had sold cryptocurrencies. “Given that he has a lot of followers, his tweets could have had an impact on Japanese traders, which in turn could have moved the market,” Sakuma said.

8: Recently Indian markets regulator Sebi said that it will come down heavily on illicit ‘initial coin offers’ seeking public investments with promise of high returns from bitcoins and other virtual currencies, amid a mushrooming of such schemes in the absence of any regulatory regime.

9: Indian Income tax department that it is set to issue notices to 4 to 5 lakh high networth individuals across the country who trade on the exchanges of bitcoins, which is unregulated in India as of now.

10: The proponents say that bitcoin’s decline since Sunday is hardly a correction for digital currency. In November, it tumbled almost 30 percent in four days from $7,888 to $5,555. In September, it fell 40 percent from $4,979 to $2,972.

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