Bleak Friday - Bitcoin mauled

Stellar Lumens' joyride went from jaunty little trek to jaw-dropping blitzkrieg before the petrol tank struck empty. That was earlier this week. Now a Friday refueling has put XLM back on the road to $0.20.

The 11th-largest-by-market-cap crypto saw its price go up 12%, to eighteen-and-half cents, over the 24-hour period ending Friday morning at 8 a.m. (EST)

To recap, XLM rocket-shipped 170% in the span of roughly a week, hit $0.23, a high for 2020, and then, with the crypto community stunned by the ludicrous price action, it naturally corrected.

Meanwhile, over in the live-on-the-razor's edge, tawny-hued realm that is copper, prices have soared this week to above $7,000 per tonne, the highest level in seven years.

Thursday brought a feast of misery for Bitcoin which after sniffing rarified air promptly fainted, and fell down hard, to as low as $16,330, before regaining its senses.

As of Friday morning (EST), BTC was holding tenuously to a 17-handle on a day when consumers get to spend their digital gold on special discounts put forth by forward-thinking merchants around the world. The “Bitcoin Black Friday” event makes solid economic sense and while we do understand the reference to the post-Thanksgiving shopping day, that dark moniker nevertheless seems to connote something ominous brewing, as American traders emerge from turkey comas, check tickers and feel like they may need to vomit.

To recap, Bitcoin was created, embraced by tech nerds, flourished in part as a way to convert online poker winnings circa the dawn of the 2010s, caught fire mid-decade, shot up to nearly $20,000 in late 2017, fell back to $3,100, lurked in shadows for the better part of two-plus years, crawled back, lost 40% in one day due to pandemic outbreak, rallied more than 150% in an extraordinary seven-month campaign bid to surpass $20,000 and nearly did but failed to do so, and over the course of two bleak days in late November dropped precipitously, from around $19,370 on Wednesday, to, at last check, 9 a.m. (EST), just above 17K.

On Friday, XRP continued to correct in a way that actually felt right, but at $0.54 it is still up nearly 80% over a seven-day stretch of gob-smacking delightfulness.

During that same period, LTC lost 15% after its price shot up to as high as $94.

Despite the drop, long-term technical indicators are still bullish (BeInCrypto).

Intermission of an epic run for Bitcoin and for crypto at large warrants a fresh assessment. The signals seem bullish:

·      Google Trends data revealed "Bitcoin" searches hit a 2020 high on Wednesday.

·      Coinbase ranked in the top 100 free apps on the Apple app store, reaching #74.

·      ETF manager VanEck, who oversees nearly $50 billion in assets, announced a new exchange traded product that will provide BTC exposure to European retail investors via a listing on the Deutsche Börse to rival U.S.-traded Crypto ETNs.

·      Analysis released by Bloomberg Intelligence on Wednesday indicated that rising open interest for listed BTC futures appears to be coming at the expense of gold contracts.

·      Fidelity Digital Assets' marketing head Christine Sandler said the firm would introduce crypto trading services for retail investors.

·      Analysis at Skew shows a sharp decline in short-term trading correlations between BTC and ETH for the first time in almost two years, with crypto investors broadening their buying and the two biggest digital assets marching to the beat of a different drum.