This Week: Establishing a New Range
Currently, BTC/USD is trading at $277.60. In the past few days we have seen a little bit more price stability following the large one-day decline between July 12th – July 13th that took us from approximately $307 down to $281 in just a matter of one hour. Since then we have been in a tight pattern establishing boundaries in the neighborhood of $280 and $275.
This week we look to find validation of whether or not we have in fact found some interim support at $275 after failing to establish any at this mark at any point in time previously this year. As we discussed last week, the next closest notable support level we had been able to observe thus far this year has been around the $260 mark. Upon further review, however we have also noted a slight amount of interaction dating back to March for a few days, around the $270 line, and again during the first week of July. We are going to observe this as a potential new support level to center a stop around depending on what happens at the $275 mark in the next 24-36 hours.
Also, last week OKcoin was the target of DOS attacks which interrupted trading for users. During the past 24 hours, this week, it appears BTC-E and Bitfinex are now the most recent victims. There have been some reports of both platforms becoming unresponsive, and also trading that is volatile and out of sync with the average index across other unaffected exchanges.
Month to Date
After opening up the month at $261.48, BTC/USD remains up 6.3% since then. Market capitalization also remains positive for the month, currently at $3.96 Billion after opening up the month at $3.69 Billion – an increase of approximately 6.8%.
Also, a bit more historical context – during this same time range we’re observing for this month – July 1-July 20 – in 2014, BTC/USD was down approximately 1.7%. It was trading around $627 after having declined from $638.25 at the beginning of the month. Also, market capitalization was off 4.1% after having opened the month at $8.49 Billion and decreasing to approximately $8.14 Billion. Comparing this July to date, with last July to date, we are currently trading 55.7% lower with a 51.3% lower market capitalization.
Year to Date
Year to date BTC/USD is currently down 11.5% for the year. We opened up January trading at $313.81. Market capitalization is also down for the year, 9.5% from $4.38 Billion on January 1st.
Again, to add more historical context, during our current timespan during 2014 (a year ago), market capitalization was down 10.9% for the year having gone from $9.12 Billion to $8.14 Billion, and price was also negative 16.9% having dropped from $754.90 to $627.00.
This concludes our market outlook and update for this week of July 19 – July 25.
