The price of bitcoin (BTC) has fallen by $150 in one hour, reaching a low of $8,511. It has since slightly rebounded to its current price of $8,526. This is the latest fall in price in a bad week for bitcoin.
In the last seven days, bitcoin has slid by more than 2% as the market turned sour following a significant rally in late October. Now, bitcoin currently sits at its lowest value in almost three weeks.
Despite the falling prices, bitcoin’s dominance has remained relatively stable at around 66% for the last week, but has fallen from over 70% since early September. On the other hand, bitcoin’s overall 24-hour volume has increased from $18.4 billion to $20.1 billion in the last seven days. Nonetheless, bitcoin's daily trade volume has seen a significant slump since late October—falling from around $48 billion on October 26.
Bitcoin's price was initially sent soaring earlier this year after Facebook announced it would launch its own cryptocurrency known as Libra. However, in the months after the announcement, bitcoin and the rest of the cryptocurrency market suffered as lawmakers and central banks around the world vowed to crack down on Libra before it even launched, sending BTC plummeting to under $7,500 by October 23.
This negative trend was only reversed following Chinese President Xi Jinping's endorsement of blockchain technology and praise for Bitcoin as the first successful application of the tech. This recent commendation has also opened new doors in the blockchain world, leading many cryptocurrencies with Chinese origins to pump considerably—though this doesn't appear to have helped the price of bitcoin as of late.