Major digital currency prices are trading at or near Thursday’s closing levels, continuing a trend that’s held most coins inside tight ranges over the last four sessions.
Bitcoin, the world’s largest digital currency, was last changing hands at $6,436.28, down 0.2% since Thursday’s level at 5 p.m. Eastern Time on the Kraken exchange. After rising more than 10% earlier in the week, bitcoin BTCUSD, +0.76% has gone back and forth between $6,300 and $6,500 lacking any real direction.
“The week started with a sharp spike, subsequently sold into, before low volume and tight trading ranges took control of the market once more. This pattern has dominated for the past month and may be the calm before the storm with a breakout becoming more and more likely,” the analyst team at Daily FX wrote in a morning post.
Since Monday’s rally, the market cap of all cryptocurrencies has traded either side of $210 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
First CFTC antifraud action involving bitcoin
Late Thursday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said it had ordered its first antifraud enforcement action involving bitcoin. A federal court in New York ordered Gelfman Blueprint Inc. and its CEO Nicholas Gelfman to pay $2.5 million after it cheated more than 80 customers out of $600,000.
Altcoins eke out modest gains Friday
Altcoins, or smaller coins alternative to bitcoin were trading marginally higher Friday. Ether ETHUSD, +2.14% was up 0.9% at $200.50, Bitcoin Cash BCHUSD, +0.55% was up 2.2% at $437.60, Litecoin LTCUSD, +0.28% was up 2.6% at $52.82 and XRP, XRPUSD, +2.12% had gained 0.5% to 45 cents.
Bitcoin futures were mostly unchanged Friday. The Cboe Global Markets November contract XBTX8, -0.16% was unchanged at $6,380, while the CME Group October contract BTCV8, +0.00% had lost 0.1% at $6,385.
