Saturday, Oct. 5 — crypto markets are trading sideways today, with most of the top 20 coins by market cap seeing losses and Bitcoin (BTC) dipping below $8,100.
Only three coins out of the top 20 cryptos are up over the past 24 hours at press time, with Iota (MIOTA) seeing the largest gains of over 2.3%. In contrast, Algorand (ALGO), the 17th crypto by market cap, is down the most, sliding nearly 2.7%.
Market visualization. Source: Coin360
Despite volatility, Bitcoin is almost flat over the past week
After hovering around $8,100 for the past two days, Bitcoin dropped below the threshold today to touch an intraday low of $8,043. At press time, Bitcoin is trading at $8,095, down around 1% over the past 24 hours.
The biggest cryptocurrency by market cap has seen some significant volatility this week, with its intraweek high and low standing at $8,485 and $7,763. Still, Bitcoin is almost flat over the past 7 days, down just around 0.3% over the period from $8,127 price recorded 7 days ago.
Bitcoin’s market share slightly dropped over the day, down from 67.2% to 67.1% at press time.
Bitcoin 7-day price chart. Source: Coin360
Ether (ETH), the second cryptocurrency by market cap, is down nearly 0.6% over the day to trade at $176. Over a 7-day period, Ether is still up 1.5%.
Ether seven-day price chart. Source: Coin360
XRP, the third top cryptocurrency by market cap, is one of the few coins seeing some gains on the day at press time. XRP is trading at 0.256, up around 0.2% over the past 24 hours while holding significant gains of 5.5% over the past 7 days.
Ripple seven-day price chart. Source: Coin360
Meanwhile, total market capitalization continued to drop, down from $218 billion 24 hours ago to $216 billion at press time, according to CoinMarketCap.
S&P 500 and Bitcoin correlation
Earlier today, Cointelegraph reported on Fundstrat Global Advisors co-founder Tom Lee claiming that Bitcoin’s price is positively correlated with the S&P 500 (SPX) market index and is not a hedge against macroeconomic turmoil. Meanwhile, S&P 500 is almost flat over a one-year period, while Bitcoin is up 21% from $6,600 in October 2018.
Lee noted that Bitcoin’s average gain was 300% in the years when the S&P 500 was below its long-term average return. At the same time, in the years that have seen the index gaining 15% or more — BTC’s average gain was 1,800%. Lee said:
“Bitcoin’s best years have all taken place in the years where the S&P has performed very well.”
