Bitcoin prices headed marginally lower Monday, but hovered near a three-week high for the world’s best known digital asset.
In early afternoon trading, one bitcoin BTCUSD, -0.05% was fetching $3,625.75, down 0.3% since Sunday at 5 p.m. Eastern Time on the Kraken exchange. The cryptocurrency traded above $3,700 on Friday, its highest level since Jan. 19.
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What are analysts saying
After bitcoin surged to its largest daily gain of the year on Friday, Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group, a U.K. consulting firm, is warning investors to cool their excitement. He emphasized that bitcoin has yet to breach a key resistance at $4,000 and remains well off its all-time high.
“It was a relatively sudden jump, and, of course, positive news for those holding bitcoin,” he wrote, referencing Friday. “However, the price only reached the top of the trading range and investors should not be popping champagne corks just yet.”
Green attributed last week’s trading action to the progress of the lightning network that is aiming to fix bitcoin’s scalability issues; that is, the ability to process bitcoin transactions more efficiently and quickly.
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Altcoins and futures
Altcoins — the group of coins other than bitcoin — were trading mixed on Monday. Ether ETHUSD, +2.34% was the best-performing altcoin, rising 2.4% to $120.12, Bitcoin Cash BCHUSD, -1.06% fell 1,5% to $121.00, XRP XRPUSD, -0.65% was off 0.5% to 30 cents and Litecoin, LTCUSD, -7.86% after rising more than 25% on Friday, pared recent gains, falling 7.7% to $42.40.
Futures were trading lower on Monday. The Cboe Global Markets February contract XBTG9, -0.69% fell 0.8% to $3,595, while the CME Group February contract BTCG9, -0.28% was down 0.4% to $3,600. The Cboe February contract is set to expire on Feb. 13.
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