BITCOIN PRICE SOARS AMID RECORD $1.2 BILLION TRADING VOLUME
Story by: WILMA WOO
In a move which startled traders used to 2018’s sideways price movements, BTC/USD passed $8000 twice before settling around $7700 at press time. Before the change, Bitcoin traded around $6800 across major exchanges.
As commentators scrabble to find a motive for the sudden volatility, an narrative that big money is manipulating Bitcoin markets continues to hold traction. What’s more, more bitcoin changed hands during this one hour than at anytime in Bitcoin’s history with $1.2 billion trading volume.
Quarterly futures contracts on OKEx totalled 1,313,000 before the rise, worth around $131 million at the time in what one Twitter trader called the “largest ask” he had seen.
At the same time, the knock-on effect of billionaire George Soros announcing he would enter the cryptocurrency trading arena is still expected to move markets.
Despite the head of macro investing at New York-based Soros Fund Management getting permission to trade, Bloomberg reported April 6, it remains unclear when the first moves will occur.
This week, Soros was joined by the Rockefeller empire, which announced a partnership with incubator CoinFund to invest in a wide range of Blockchain startups in the long term.
KICKING OUT THE BEARS BY SUNDAY
Dealing with the immediate aftermath of Thursday’s price action meanwhile, analysts concluded further upside was needed in order to break through the more general downtrend which has characterized Bitcoin in recent months.
A decisive move, one says, could nonetheless come before the start of next week.
