Bitcoin briefly trades below $33,000 heading into the weekend

© Reuters.

By Samuel Indyk

AiVIF.com – The price of Bitcoin fell below $33,000 on Friday to trade at its lowest level since Sunday as focus turns to the weekend trading conditions. Bitcoin has moved lower over the last three weekends, dropping as low as $30,200 last weekend before finding some support ahead of the psychological $30,000 level.

The latest weakness comes despite reports that some large hedge funds are looking to get into cryptocurrencies.

Point72 Asset Management, run by Steve Cohen, has recently placed an advert for a head of cryptocurrencies, while billionaire George Soros’s family office has also reportedly recently started trading Bitcoin.

Q2 Performance

The news comes after a notoriously weak quarter for the world’s largest cryptocurrency. In Q2, Bitcoin fell around 40%, one of the largest quarterly declines of all time. However, the weakness in the cryptocurrency comes after the price doubled during the first quarter.

“What started as a great quarter, with Coinbase's (NASDAQ:COIN) IPO on April 14, in which Bitcoin's price went as high as $63,000, quickly shifted to a record-setting drop in price over the past few months, as the sentiment around the market turned bearish,” said data science company IntoTheBlock.

“There are several factors that influenced the sharp decline in price, weighted by China's crackdown on Bitcoin mining, lack of appetite from institutional investors, regulatory concerns, and Elon Musk's constant FUD which started as Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) announced that it would no longer accept Bitcoin payments due to environmental concerns,” the company said in an emailed newsletter.   

Technical levels

The optimism that surrounded Bitcoin after its jump from below $29,000 to above $36,000 earlier this week has evaporated with markets focused on the today’s Nonfarm Payrolls data. The US created 850,000 net new jobs in June, above the expected 700,000, while the unemployment rate unexpectedly increased to 5.9%.

The news weighed slightly on the USD, with the US Dollar Index dropping 0.2%, although failed to impact Bitcoin which continues to trade around $33,000.

To the downside, the next big level of support could be the psychological $30,000 level before the June low of $28,900.

To the upside, a clean break of $35,000 could see the 21DMA come into play at $35,300. The next level to the upside which could act as resistance will be the 50DMA at $37,100 before $40,000 is in focus.