The bitcoin lull is over. The price of the No. 1 digital currency has broken out of its recent narrow trading range, dropping to a two-week low towards $6,300 and providing traders some long missing volatility.
A single bitcoin BTCUSD, -1.95% was last changing hands at $6,339.33, down 1.2% since Sunday at 5 p.m. Eastern Time on the Kraken exchange. Bitcoin had reached an intraday low of $6,313.53, the lowest level since Oct. 15.
Read: What’s more volatile than bitcoin? You may be surprised
BTC/USD courtesy of TradingView
Earlier in the session Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at eToro suggested a move was imminent: “There’s still reason to believe that the breakout we’ve been waiting for may be getting closer rather than further away.” said Greenspan.
“A quick look at blockchain’s data confirms that bitcoin is getting busier lately,” he said, referring to the transactions per-second, which are at their highest level since January, according to Greenspan.
Small Canadian exchange hacked
MapleChange, an Edmonton, Canada-based cryptocurrency exchange was hacked late Sunday resulting in the loss of the majority of its cryptocurrency. The company announced via Twitter that it had “sustained an attack” before saying that most of the major coins were unrecoverable.
We CANNOT refund any BTC or LTC funds unfortunately. We will try our best to refund everything else.
— MapleChange (@MapleChangeEx) October 28, 2018
The company was holding just under 1,000 bitcoins, according to Forbes.
Altcoins and futures are drifting lower
Bitcoin has dragged down the broader crypto market. Ether ETHUSD, -3.54% was trading at $197.99, down 2% on the day, Bitcoin Cash BCHUSD, -5.00% was down 2.8% at $422.00, Litecoin LTCUSD, -5.26% was off 5.7% at $48.40 and XRP, XRPUSD, -3.93% was at 44 cents, down 3.1%.
In futures trading the Cboe Global Markets November contract XBTX8, -2.19% was down 1.5% at $6,305, while the CME Group November contract BTCV8, -0.16% was off 1.5% at $6,295.
Read: Bitcoin is 10 years old: Here’s what to expect in the cryptocurrency’s second decade
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