After a two-day selloff, major cryptocurrencies saw moderate gains Friday as they looked to claw back losses in what’s been a tumultuous few days for crypto investors.
The 48-hour slide saw the No. 1 digital currency, bitcoin BTCUSD, -2.59% lose as much as $2,000, trading below $9,600 late Thursday. Bitcoin $10,000, before finishing the Friday New York session up 1.3% at $9,971.21.
Despite the bounce, price action remains subdued, with each rally met with selling pressure, market participants said. “Even though I think BTC’s worst days are still ahead of us, we are in the eye of the storm and prices will stabilize over the near-term. But since lower-lows are still ahead of us, any rallies should be sold, not chased,” Jani Ziedins of Cracked.Market said.
For bitcoin, the next level on the top side is the $11,000 to $11,500, which sees the top of a trend line channel from the all-time high and the 50-day moving average, currently at $11,091. Market technicians tend to look at moving averages to gauge an asset bullish or bearish momentum.
Other major cryptocurrencies followed bitcoin, squeezing out gains. Ether finished 4.1% higher, trading to $848.12, Bitcoin cash rose 1.4% at $1,241.76, Litecoin finished above $200, up 5% trading to $205.77 and Ripple finished at $0.99, up 4.6%.
Despite the rally, the danger remains on the downside. “We think this may be another pullback, however, the break of this month’s low could change the game,” said Naeem Aslam, chief Market Analyst at ThinkCoin.
SEC announced tighter controls in cryptocurrency market
In other news, the SEC said today its Cyber Unit will increase penalties for unregistered offerings as regulation concerns continue to hover over the market.
Cyber Unit focuses on:
— SEC_News (@SEC_News) February 23, 2018
- digital assets and initial coin offerings
- hacking to obtain nonpublic info
- intrusions into retail brokerage accounts
- threats to trading platforms
- cybersecurity controls at firms the SEC regulates#SECSpeaks18
This follows a Feb. 6 hearing when SEC chairman Jay Clayton, responding to a question from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, said unregistered ICOs were a violation of the law. He compared an ICO with a standard private placement, which doesn’t have to be registered with the SEC, but do come under tight regulatory scrutiny.
Bitcoin futures
The futures markets had a mixed Friday. The Cboe Global Market’s March XBTH8, -0.95% closed down 0.1% at $9,920 and the CME Group Inc. February contract BTCG8, +1.98% finished higher by 2.3% at $10,320. The CME’s February contract expires on Friday, with the front-month March contract BTCH8, -1.34% closing down 1.3% at $9,950.
For the week, both March contracts finished down more than 10% with the majority of losses coming since Wednesday’s open.
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