Over the past five days, the value of bitcoin has continued to fall. This comes against the backdrop of the largest hash rate decline in the main cryptocurrency network since November last year and record transaction fees.
Today, April 20, the cost of bitcoin dropped to $ 53.6 thousand, price on the Binance crypto exchange is $ 55.6 thousand. Over the past five days, the first digital coin has fallen in price by 13% (from $ 63.5 thousand).
This comes amid the largest drop in Bitcoin network hashrate since November last year due to a massive shutdown of mining farms in China’s Xinjiang province as a result of power outages. On April 15, even before the shutdown of Chinese mining farms, according to the analytical service Bit info charts , the average hash rate in the bitcoin network was 157.5 EH / s. , it is 98.53 EH / s.
Due to the decrease in the hash rate, the average transaction fee on the network of the main cryptocurrency has grown to the highest level ever in the history of $ 58.4. The last time this figure reached $ 54 was in December 2017.
The largest drop in the value of bitcoin in the past few months came on April 18, an hour after an unconfirmed message appeared on Twitter about an investigation that the US Treasury allegedly launched against several financial institutions on suspicion of money laundering using cryptocurrencies. 10 minutes after the publication of the tweet, which was subsequently deleted, the bitcoin rate on the Binance crypto exchange lost more than 13% and fell to $ 50.9 thousand.
This led to a massive liquidation of long positions of traders. According to the bybt.com service, crypto traders lost over $ 9 billion per day. The last time a similar drop in quotations was observed at the end of February. Then Bitcoin set a new maximum value, and then fell in price by 21% (from $ 58.3 thousand to $ 45.9 thousand).
Short-term options to sell bitcoin have increased compared to options to buy cryptocurrency, according to Coindesk analyst Omkar Godbowl. He drew attention to the fact that over the week the ratio of put options to call options rose by 26% and reached a record high since October last year.
Over the past three weeks, this figure has also increased by 8%. According to the analyst, these data do not necessarily indicate that traders are set to further decline in quotations. It could also be buying defensive options against long positions in the spot and futures markets, Omkar Godbowl noted.
Now the crypto market is in a state of uncertainty, says Andrey Podolyan, CEO of the cryptorg.exchange crypto exchange. According to him, the correction in the crypto market happened earlier than expected. The expert assumed that the quotes will move to a correction after Bitcoin approaches $ 70 thousand.
“The correction happened earlier than I expected, and as always it was quite unexpected. Nevertheless, the bulls bought back the fall rather quickly, ”he noted.
In the current situation, Andrey Podolyan recommends not to open any positions. In his opinion, if the correction continues, it will open an entry point at the level of $ 50-52 thousand with the need to set a stop-loss around $ 47 thousand.