Bitcoin Leads Cryptocurrency Sell Off

• Bitcoin Leads Cryptocurrency Sell Off

The most dominant cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, dropped more than 6.2 percent of its value on Friday to trade at $5,244 a coin. The largest one day drop in eight months.

Prior to the sudden drop, $6,000 and $5,000 support levels are widely regarded as bottoms for the virtual currency. However, Bitcoin has now broken both levels to trade at a $5,244 before rebounding to $5,564.“The movement we saw today seemed to be the run-of-the-mill volatility surrounding Bitcoin and a breakout that’s been weeks coming,” said Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst in London at eToro. “It’s difficult to say where it ends. No one can really predict.”

The sudden drop in value after months of what seems like a stable market has now created panic sell-off among traders.

According to Abraham Merkin, a cryptocurrency trader, the spike in trading volume is a concern, especially “after months of low volume and low market interest this has all the markings of a triggered panic sell. Volume is up as high as 85% on some exchanges and 20-25% is common even among mainstream exchanges.”

Bitcoin is now down 12.10 percent in the last seven days, while Ripple has dropped 15.94 percent and Litecoin is down by 18.32 percent during the same period.

The uncertainty and volatility surrounding the cryptocurrency market continued to hurt its attractiveness as more people keep looking the other way.