The price of Bitcoin fell to the level of $30700. Ethereum fell to the level of $1825, and the cost of XRP reached 56 cents. The total capitalization of the digital currency market was $1.25 trillion.
Bitcoin and Ethereum have shown significant declines over the past week. The main cryptocurrency from levels above 34,000 fell by more than 10%. Ethereum decreased by 15%. A comparable negative trend is shown by other major crypto assets, many of which have lost a quarter of their value in seven days. The bitcoin dominance index has risen to 45% due to the greater stability of the first cryptocurrency compared to other assets. After hitting a record of around 65,000 in April, Bitcoin entered a phase of rapid decline in May and fell below 30,000 for the first time since the beginning of this year. During this time, several negative events have occurred, including Elon Musk's criticism of bitcoin's energy consumption, the ban on mining in China and the attention of world regulators to the Binance exchange.
In addition, uncertainty in the broader financial space has its impact. The VIX volatility index jumped by 25% at the opening of trading today, after being below the historically average values for most of the spring and summer. At the same time, the yield rates of US government bonds went down. In the current conditions and against the background of record overbought, traders can expect an adjustment of the S&P 500 index, which can also affect the cryptocurrency market.
500 option contracts for the sale of bitcoin with an expiration date of December 31 and a strike price of 22,000 were concluded through the Deribit exchange on Sunday. The same number of contracts were taken with an execution price of $20,000. With a high degree of probability, these contracts were bought by a large investor who seeks to hedge his long position on the spot or futures market with their help. In general, positive expectations of the long-term prospects of bitcoin prevail among the participants of the options market. The price ratio of put/call options on six-month contracts remains on the side of the latter. Nevertheless, for weekly, one-month and three-month contracts, the most popular positions are now for sale.
The forecast assumes a further fall of Bitcoin to the levels of $30,300, $30,000 and $29,500. Ethereum will reach the levels of 1800, 1780 and 1750 dollars, and XRP-price values of 55, 52 and 50 cents.