After nearly two weeks stagnating at around $6,400, bitcoin (BTC) has suddenly dropped out of the trading range.
At 12:00 UTC, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization dropped nearly $200 to reach a two-week low of $6,243.
For the last 14-days, bitcoin had been stuck in a range of $6,590-$6,403 – its least volatile stretch since April 2017, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index (BPI).
The squeeze in bitcoin prices had been somewhat surprising, since the cryptocurrency has shown to be correlated with the equities markets which are about to end their worst month since the financial crisis in 2008. As a result, BTC’s move to the downside was perhaps overdue.
The broader cryptocurrency market has also taken a hit over the last few hours, a common occurrence when bitcoin prices show weakness.
Well-known cryptocurrencies including ether (ETH), XRP and bitcoin cash (BCH) are all reporting 24-hour losses above three percent. Litecoin (LTC) is the worst performing cryptocurrency out of top 10 by market cap, reporting a 24-hour loss of over five percent.
Further, the press time total market value of all cryptocurrencies is down just over three percent on a 24-hour basis, currently being worth $203 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.
Disclosure: The author holds BTC, AST, REQ, OMG, FUEL, 1st and AMP at the time of writing.
Bitcoin and chart image via Shutterstock
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