Bitcoin Below the $9,000 Price Mark, Trading in a Tight Range
Bitcoin (BTC) broke below the $9,000 price mark on Thursday afternoon. At the same time, the leading cryptocurrency further traded in a tight range right above $9,000 for several weeks.
Even with the brief 3% afternoon drop, the crypto markets remained eerily calm as volatility fell, and traders continued expecting a big move. Also, Bitcoin continues to change hands at about $9,060.
Then, Ether – the second-largest crypto by market capitalization – declined by 3%. And it is currently trading at about $225, according to Coinbase.
Aside from that, Bitcoin teased bearish traders on Thursday by making a 3% drop – from $9,250 to $8,930 in afternoon hours. With that move, it ignited a series of liquidations on BitMEX, increasing to $30 million after the afternoon price move. For some days now, liquidations had been reasonably flat on the largest BTC derivatives platform.
Even with the afternoon drop, spot trading volumes remained stable relative to the preceding few days. For instance, Coinbase’s volume barely edged out its Wednesday’s volume – reporting an overall trade of $78 million.
Institutional investors still make moves on crypto markets despite the quiet price action.
On the other hand, several of the darlings of the equities markets continued to soar as Bitcoin falls. Tesla generated a new all-time high for the second consecutive day, increasing to $1,288 in early trading hours. Then, the technology stock started higher than its Wednesday close as its bullish momentum continues with ferocity. Also, Zoom showed a new all-time high, trading at nearly $264 during afternoon hours.
CBDC in Japan
Meanwhile, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) revealed that it would start to experiment with a central bank digital currency (CBDC) to check its feasibility from a technical view.
BoJ wishes to digitize cash, but it remains to be seen if the country can catch up with China – which has already started testing its CBDC. Also, this would be the first time the BoJ has announced that it would commence a Proof of Concept (PoC) process with the digital yen. However, the bank has not yet given a timetable.
Based on a report called Technical Hurdles for CBDC, the bank said that it would review the feasibility of CBDC from technical perspectives. Also, they plan to work with other central banks and relevant institutions and consider introducing CBDC.
Last February, news spread out that the central banks of Britain, the eurozone, Japan, Canada, Sweden, and Switzerland had revealed a plan to collaborate on researching issuing digital currencies.
Challenges
Moreover, the BoJ believes that there are two major technical hurdles – universal access and resilience. The former refers to giving access to everyone, including those without a smartphone.
Unexpectedly, according to Nikkei, in 2018, only 65% of Japanese have smartphones. Then, the BoJ stated that it is vital to improving CBDC to be available to different users.
‘Resilience’ points to the offline availability when electric power is down. The BoJ highlighted the importance of accessibility in all kinds of environments – even in an emergency situation like an earthquake.
