Bitcoin reversed course after reclaiming the $60,000 level on Friday amid low trading volumes as the rally in the world’s oldest cryptocurrency lost steam after logging a gain of over 8% over the past four sessions.
The overall trading volume of bitcoin fell by more than 7% to $55.93 billion over the last 24 hours.
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The price of bitcoin had surged past the $59,000 level on Thursday after the US Federal Reserve kept zero-rate outlook and Morgan Stanley became the latest major corporate to jump on the crypto bandwagon.
On Friday, the digital asset was $58,454.49 at around 3.50pm IST, down 0.4% after moving in the $56,487.88-60,186.21 range over the past 24 hours, as per CoinGecko.
“Bitcoin is between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, recent price action suggests that the bulls are well positioned for a retest of their all-time high of $62,000. On the other hand, it is on the brink of back-testing two critical levels of support that could ultimately lead to yet another 25-30% correction,” global crypto exchange Kraken said in a note.
“However, between bitcoin having gained close to 100% year-to-date, fundamentals remaining strong, and sitting in relatively uncharted waters, there is no reason why we couldn’t see bitcoin consolidate around current price before making a move either higher or lower,” it added.
The cryptocurrency had hit its lifetime high of $61,711.87 on 13 March but tumbled towards the $55,800 mark by 15 March as the rally looked overstretched.
Meanwhile, other major digital currencies such as Ethereum and Cardano were trading up to 13% in the red.
On the major highlights in the crypto world this week, Sumit Gupta, CEO and co-founder of CoinDCX, said: “Bitcoin hit a record high above the $61,000 mark last Saturday. Along with this, we are continuously witnessing fresh bouts of institutional and corporate investments regularly across the global markets, with bitcoin leading the way. Morgan Stanley, the US investment bank offering its wealth management clients access to bitcoin is the latest to join the bandwagon following strong backing from investment giants such as Tesla, JP Morgan, MicroStrategy and BlackRock among others.”
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