Crypto markets are calm, with most major coins seeing only minor ups and downs, as commentators weigh in on markedly low Bitcoin volatility levels.
Thursday, Oct. 18: Crypto markets are seeing continued stability, with few of the major cryptocurrencies budging in price, as Coin360 data shows.
Market visualization by Coin360
Meanwhile, Tether (USDT) has seen marked movement for a “stablecoin.” Having slipped from its U.S. dollar peg to trade well below its historical price range last week, the asset has today seen around 0.7 percent growth as it stakes an attempted recovery.
Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $6,545 at press time, seeing negligible price change on the day according to CoinMarketCap. Despite a short-lived spike Oct. 17, which correlated with Tether’s price drop, Bitcoin has retracted back to just a price point just slightly higher than at the start of its weekly chart.
In a longer view, the top coin is seeing notably low volatility levels: earlier this month, Bitcoin achieved a 17-month low volatility rate, recording its highest level of stability since mid-2017.
Data from Bitcoinity shows a consistent decline in Bitcoin’s volatility, calculated as an averaged standard deviation from all market trades throughout 2018:
Bitcoin Price volatility, 10 Oct. 2016-10 Oct. 2018. Source: Bitcoiny
The other side to price stability has been low trading volumes: BTC volumes as of press time are around $3.75 billion, having hit as low as $3.2 billion Oct. 7, according to CoinMarketCap.
Overall on the week, the top coin is up around 4 percent: on its monthly chart, growth is around 2.6 percent.
Bitcoin 7-day price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
Ethereum (ETH) is down 1 percent to trade just around $205, according to CoinMarketCap. Having seen an intra-week low of around $189 on Oct. 12, followed by a couple of days of sustained losses, the leading altcoin saw a brief spike Oct. 15, to trade as high as $220.
This brings Ethereum to a 2.1 percent gain on its weekly chart; monthly losses are a similarly slight 3.1 percent.
Ethereum 7-day price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
After a major sweep upwards in September, Ripple (XRP) has seen a more stable price pattern through October. The asset is down just under 1 percent on the day to trade at $0.46 at press time. Nonetheless, Ripple has seen more momentum than its larger market cap counterparts: it is up a solid 13 percent on its weekly chart. The figure is higher still from a monthly perspective, with growth close to 44 percent.
Ripple 7-day price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
The remaining top ten coins on CoinMarketCap are more red than green, but all changes are capped within a 2 percent range in both directions.
Tether (USDT), as noted, has reclaimed the ground it lost during its dollar untethering, and is up 0.7 percent to trade at about $0.975 at press time. Several reasons have been proposed to explain the recent wave of negative market sentiment for Tether, including recent reports that banking complications appear to have beset both Tether and associated crypto exchange Bitfinex.
These reports were followed by Bitfinex temporarily suspending fiat wire deposits without disclosing a specific reason.
Others have proposed the apparent sell-off was tied to investors “losing faith” because of the ongoing lack of transparency surrounding Tether’s claims to be backed one-to-one by the U.S. dollar. During its tumble, Tether traded as low as $0.925 on Oct. 15.
Tether’s market cap is also down today, around 2.1 billion by press time, as opposed to about 2.7 billion last month.
Tether 7-day price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
Seventh largest coin Litecoin (LTC) is down the most of the top ten coins, losing 1.63 percent to trade at around $52.74 by press time. Still among the top ten, Cardano (ADA) and Monero (XMR) are both down about 1.3 and 1.1 percent on the day to press time. Stellar (XLM) is just in the green, up a fractional 0.2 percent and trading at $0.24 at press time.
In the context of the top twenty coins, the market picture is also calm, with most coins seeing minor price changes of red and green within a 2 percent range.
Tezos (XTZ) has settled after its recent growth and is down 1 percent and trading at around $1.37. Tron (TRX) is up around 1.1 percent at $0.024; NEO (NEO) just slightly less, up by 0.9 percent at $16.75.
The largest losses among the top ten coins have been IOTA (MIOTA), Dash (DASH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC), all losing close to 2 percent on the day.
A notable outlier in the market is anonymity-focused altcoin Zcash (ZEC), which has seen marked momentum and is up over 5 percent on the day to trade at $121.28, dislodging spoof alt Dogecoin (DOGE) from its spot as twentieth largest coin by market cap.
Zcash’s 7-day price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
DOGE, meanwhile, is down around 4.7 percent, now ranked 21st largest crypto asset, and is trading at $0.004476.
Total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies is down to around $210.16 billion as of press time. Having reached as high as $220.2 billion Oct. 15., the market saw a correction and has traded sideways for several days.
7-day chart of the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies from CoinMarketCap
Experts have weighed in on Bitcoin’s low October volatility in particular. Prominent venture capital investor Garry Tan has argued that what he dubs the “crypto winter […] makes it safer for super-long-term oriented Yale-model institutions to enter at a price that isn’t dangerous.”
Others consider that volatility will continue to decline as a sign of market maturity, yet as a Cointelegraph analysis piece has this week outlined, the coin has a historical pattern of seeing periods of stability followed by a significant rally, as in 2013.
