(Feb 11): Bitcoin fell to its lowest level since last Friday’s (Feb 6) selloff, diverging sharply from Asian equities that climbed to fresh records and highlighting investors’ lack of confidence in a sustained recovery.
The largest cryptocurrency dropped as much as 2.8% to US$66,664 during Asian trading hours on Wednesday. Ether, the second-biggest coin, fell 3.5% to an intraday low of US$1,938.
Those declines came even as the MSCI Asia Pacific Index advanced 1.5% to an all-time high, extending its year-to-date outperformance over US and European peers. A gauge of emerging-market stocks also touched a record. The dollar declined.
Renewed expectations of US rate cuts aren’t buoying digital tokens, where sluggish trading underscores the bleak mood gripping the sector since October. While large Bitcoin investors have started purchasing again, the token’s failure to attract wider buying puts it at risk of further declines.
“The acceleration of price decline to US$60,000 without corresponding volume spikes suggests thin order books and lack of buyer conviction at intermediate levels,” Kaiko analyst Laurens Fraussen wrote in a note. “This creates vulnerability to further downside on modest selling pressure.”
See also: South Korean lawmakers grill Bithumb CEO over ‘ghost bitcoin’
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