REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
- Bitcoin edged lower Friday to its worst weekly performance in more than a month, nearing $30,000.
- Other major cryptocurrencies are also trading lower.
- A myriad of headwinds have battered crypto, from Fed Chair Powell’s comments on regulation to Binance’s ongoing scrutiny.
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Bitcoin slipped Friday to clock worst weekly performance in more than a month as the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap inches closer to a key support level of $30,000.
Bitcoin on Friday morning was trading at $31,363 as of 8:30 a.m. ET, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
An eventual break below this level will be crucial, Julius de Kempenaer, senior technical analyst at StockCharts.com, told Insider.
“If and when this happens, $20,000 is on the cards as the next level of support to watch,” said.
The selling pressures began on Thursday when the digital asset suffered its biggest drop in about 10 days. Bitcoin in the past month has been trading in a range at just around half its April peak price of nearly $65,000.
Alongside bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies have slid in the last 24 hours:
- Ether: down 1.72% to $1,869.57
- Cardano: down 3.19% to $1.18
- Ripple: down 1.28% to $$0.5923
- Dogecoin: down 5.43% to $0.1796
- Polkadot: down 5.06% to $12.38
- Solana: down 4.05% to $27.76
Cryptocurrencies have struggled to rebound from a massive crash in May when the value of the total market dropped by nearly half in just seven days.
A number of headwinds have been blowing against the crypto market since the brutal sell-off.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Thursday told the Senate Banking Committee that cryptocurrencies have failed to become a viable payment method. A day earlier, he also said the US won’t need stablecoins and cryptocurrencies if the central bank were to issue its own digital currency.
There have also been problems plaguing the the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, which is weathering an intensifying regulatory crackdown. Italy most recently joined a growing list of nations to issue a warning against the exchange, saying it is not authorized to do business in the country.
Bitcoin is also under increasing fire for its impact on the environment from critics who points to the heavy energy consumption of bitcoin mining.
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