Bitcoin slips over 10% to 1-week low
tokyo — Bitcoin fell more than 10 per cent on Wednesday to a one-week low of $15,800 at cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp, losing almost one-fifth of its value from a peak hit just three days ago.
The digital currency has been sliding since it reached a record high of $19,666 on Sunday, when the exchange giant CME Group launched Bitcoin futures, one week after its rival Cboe Global Markets listed the world’s first Bitcoin futures.
“The listing of two Bitcoin futures makes it easier for institutional players to trade Bitcoins. Futures also enable players to go short on Bitcoins, which was difficult without liquid futures,” said Makoto Sakuma, researcher at NLI Research Institute in Tokyo.
Bitcoin’s monumental gains this year — its price has soared about 19 times — have spurred caution and alarm among some policymakers, including those from Singapore and South Korea.
Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said on Tuesday that Bitcoin had not been proven as a credible currency.
However, for Japanese retail investors who are estimated to account for 30 to 50 per cent of Bitcoin trade worldwide, a more worrying warning may have come from a Japanese day trader guru known as Cis.
The individual trader, who claims to own ¥21 billion ($186 million) in assets, tweeted over the last 24 hours that he had sold cryptocurrencies. “Given that he has a lot of followers, his tweets could have had an impact on Japanese traders, which in turn could have moved the market,” Sakuma said. —