Bitcoin price slumps back below $10,000

Bitcoin’s (BTC) price is currently floundering below the $10,000 resistance as most of the altcoin markets are flashing red today.

Bitcoin price struggles to hold on to $10,000 support

Data gleaned from CoinMarketCap shows the BTC/USD has crossed the $10,000 mark several times during the past 24 hours. At the time of writing the pair is hovering just below the $10,000 mark, down by 2% and changing hands at $9,978.21.

Analysts are trying to decide whether $10,000 will now become a support or resistance, however, the latest price action is a clear indicator of bearish trends, in which BTC/USD dropped to current areas from levels closer to $11,000.

Josh Rager, cryptocurrency commentator believes that BTC needs to close above $10,200 to cement any upside chances, which of course bitcoin has failed to do in this session.

The Crypto Panda, another well-known social-media analyst, has shared a far more pessimistic view, forewarning on Wednesday that bitcoin could be facing a similar breakdown to November 2018. Back then, an unexpected shift saw BTC/USD hit lows as far down as $3,100.

PlanB, another popular Twitter crypto analyst stated:

“After each ATH #bitcoin price drops until a lot of miners aren’t profitable. Miners switch off hardware (capitulate), hashrate drops, and difficulty adjusts downwards until miners become profitable again and difficulty rises.”

Furthermore, he cited mining difficulty, an indicator which calculates the amount of processing power required for validation of BTC transactions, as a factor. The mining difficulty, as seen in the past, needs to bottom out before higher prices appear.

He concluded:

“Difficulty bottom (100%) starts a new bull market.”

Another clear indication of the behaviour affecting bitcoin markets, weekly gains remain at nearly 5% for traders, while month losses remain around 1%. Notably, bitcoin’s three-month performance is still robust at 30% gains.

Altcoin markets consolidate

August 22 marks an interesting date for the altcoin markets as it marks one of the few days in which several tokens are less volatile than bitcoin.

Ethereum is down by a modest 1% and changing hands at $185.46, XRP is down by 0.43% and trading at $0.265045 and Bitcoin Cash is down by 1.61% and trading at $297.

All in all, nine out of the top ten cryptocurrencies are reporting losses for the day, except for Tether which is up by 0.50%. Be sure to check in again at 14:00 for your top ten latest cryptocurrency news and prices.