Crypto market cap dips below $200 billion for the first time since mid-September
Bitcoin prices are holding above $6,000 on Friday after a 24-hour selloff saw the price of the world’s largest digital currency trade perilously close to the crucial support level.
A single bitcoin BTCUSD, +0.12% was last going for $6,234.10, up 0.1% since Thursday at 5 p.m. Eastern Time on the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange.
Yesterday’s decline took the total value of all cryptocurrencies below $200 billion for the first time since Sept. 20, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
With global equity markets in the midst of a brutal selloff, industry onlookers are watching closely for moves in digital currency prices, with some proponents speculating bitcoin could act as a haven trade—digital gold some hypothesized.
But yesterday’s move put that notion to bed, for now. “There’s a narrative that the crypto market was simply falling in lockstep with the equity markets, which are slowly entering into correction zones. We believe this move in cryptocurrencies had nothing to do with the stock market,” wrote Thejas Nalval, Element Digital Asset Management portfolio director, and Kevin Lu, the firm’s director of quantitative research.
“Evidence has shown that there have been little correlation between global stock indexes and the price of bitcoin. Nor does bitcoin move on economic data.”
Coins other than bitcoin, often referred to as altcoins, are mostly higher Friday. Bitcoin Cash BCHUSD, +0.25% was up 0.1% to $441.20, Litecoin LTCUSD, +2.14% was trading 0.3% higher at $52.02 and XRP XRPUSD, +5.05% is the best performing major altcoin, trading up 4.9% at 42 cents.
Bucking the trend was Ether, ETHUSD, -1.44% the coin that runs on the ethereum network, which is trading down 2% to $193.60.
Bitcoin futures are trying to end the week on a positive note. The Cboe Global Markets October contract XBTV8, +0.85% was up 0.6% at $6,185 and the CME Group October contract BTCV8, +0.40% was up 0.3% at $6,200.
