Bitcoin Falls by 5% in Sunday Slump

The heady days of daily headlines on Decrypt announcing new consecutive ATHs for Bitcoin have cooled off in what could be the petering out of a now-historic bull run. Today the currency suffered a further fall of 5%, taking it to a price of $35,000.

Observers predicted a correction was overdue at some point along the run. Valued at $10,500 at the start of October, Bitcoin rose consistently through the end of the year, with notable growth spurts around Christmas and New Year’s, bringing it to a dizzying ATH of $42,000 on January 8.

The general consensus is that Bitcoin’s market performance was bolstered by a wave of serious institutional interest from various companies. Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge recently launched its own Bitcoin fund; Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy also invested over a billion dollars in the currency—perhaps prompting Morgan Stanley to buy a ten percent stake in the company to capitalize on the growing interest in BTC.

Their faith in the coin remains, though, with Scaramucci taking to Twitter to declare that “a 25% pullback is no surprise. Expect many surges and pullbacks ahead.” On the same platform, Saylor stands by his expensive choice every day, summarising his attitude to Bitcoin in a retweeted meme.

Elsewhere in the news

Meanwhile, according to a report by Coindesk, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan both sent out RFIs (requests for information),— essentially feelers for exploring ‘digital asset’ (crypto) custody. 

According to Assetdash, Bitcoin is now the tenth biggest asset by market capitalization, having blazed clear of crypto critic Warren Buffet’s company Berkshire Hathaway, now two places behind, and leaving giants like Visa, JPMorgan, and MasterCard trailing at fourteenth, fifteenth, and twenty-first respectively. 

The graphs may be falling but Bitcoin’s future remains a topic of heated speculation.