Bitcoin (BTC) Price May Record Losses For The Year, Other Major Cryptos Also in the Red

Bitcoin (BTC) had been trading in a tight range of $6,450 – $6,500 during the past three days, before falling below the $6,400 mark today. The leading cryptocurrency may now record a loss for the year as its 10-year anniversary approaches.

On Wednesday (October 31st), it will be exactly a decade since the Bitcoin whitepaper was released by its pseudonymous inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto.

In the past 24 hours, the bitcoin price recorded a high of $6,476.93 and a low of $6,274.93 according to CryptoCompare data.

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Drops Below $6,400

Since October 17th, the world’s most dominant digital currency had been trading between the $6,650 to $6,400 mark. At press time, bitcoin is trading at around $6,340.

As CryptoGlobe reported on October 28th, bitcoin’s volatility index fell to its lowest point since December 2016. The flagship cryptocurrency is also not exhibiting any signs of recovery as its price has fallen by over 65 percent from its all-time high of nearly $20,000 on December 17th, 2017.

Should the current lateral trading continue for another 48 hours, then the BTC price could record a loss for the year as it was trading above the $6,400 mark on October 31st, 2017. Moreover, if bitcoin price does not begin to recover by next month, then it would record more year-on-year losses.

Bitcoin Futures Not Performing As Well As Expected

Last year, bitcoin surged past the $8,000 mark following the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group’s announcement that they would be introducing bitcoin (BTC) futures in December of 2017.

Despite the CME and Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe) launching bitcoin futures last year, institutional investors have not invested nearly as much as expected in the cryptocurrency market.

As CryptoGlobe covered recently, 10 months after the launch of CME’s and Cboe’s BTC futures contracts, the bitcoin price has dropped nearly 70% from its all-time high of $19,783.06. Also, both the CME and Cboe had only issued an average of 9,000 contracts during Q3 2018, which is just a small fraction compared to how many futures contracts are traded in traditional markets.

Crypto Market In The Red

The prices of almost all other major cryptocurrencies are in the red today. Ethereum’s native token, Ether (ETH), recorded a 24-hour high of around $205, but is trading at $196.78 at press time. This, despite positive news recently that the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) will be joining the HyperLedger project (an open-source initiative to help increase the adoption of blockchain technology) as an associate member.

Ripple’s XRP cryptocurrency is down by about 3.6% in the past 24 hours, and is currently trading at $0.4424. EOS is also down by 4.8% in the last 24 hours and is trading at $5.18 at press time.