For weeks, bitcoin has seen its price plunge, and yet, the world's leading digital currency has so far been able to avoid crossing the important $6,000 threshold. At the end of this week, this is no longer; BTC dropped below $6,000 on Friday, reaching its lowest level since November of 2017 and marking a decline of roughly 60% since its peak. As of 4:27 p.m. EDT this Friday, BTC dropped as low as $5,799.62, according to CNBC. That's a decline of 57% for the year. While that is a dramatic fall, the currency had previously climbed by more than 1,100% last year.
No Single Reason for the Plunge
It's likely that there was no single cause of this week's decline in BTC price. As has been the case in previous weeks as well, the cryptocurrency market continued to stagger along and dropped somewhat on several different pieces of news. Japan's financial regulator, for instance, ordered that a number of digital currency exchanges make improvements in their efforts to counter money laundering. In the past, attempts to supplement regulatory oversight have inevitably led to drops for BTC, and when bitcoin sees its price decline, most other cryptocurrencies do as well.
Security Breaches Continue
Contributing to the overall instability of the cryptocurrency space is the fact that many exchanges have also seen new security breaches in recent weeks. In the last two weeks, for instance, Coinrail and Bithumb, two prominent South Korean exchanges, announced large-scale attacks resulting in the theft of millions of dollars in tokens.
Futures Contracts Expire
For some analysts, like Brian Kelly, CEO of BKCM, part of the issue plaguing bitcoin is the expiration of CME futures contracts. "The market is not reacting any positive news, but the news flow has been quite positive" nonetheless, he suggested. Kelly pointed to the SEC's clarification in recent weeks that ethereum is not classified as a security as potentially good news for the digital currency community. Matthew Newton of eToro suggested that, while futures contract expiration may temporarily depress BTC prices, a general lack of excitement could be the bigger issue. "There's no real spark in the market right now to get it moving, it's just more sellers than buyers," he explained.
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