Cryptocurrency Prices Surge As Bitcoin Short Positions Decline, Per CFTC

Investing, News | August 28, 2018 By:

One of the strongest days for bitcoin and cryptocurrency in months arrived on Tuesday, as prices climbed and green arrows were plentiful in the top ten coins.

At mid-morning, bitcoin sat just above the magic $7,000 per single coin mark, boosting the rest of the cryptocurrency markets. The rest of the market gainers in the top ten were up three to seven percent, with IOTA continuing its bull run, up more than 14 percent.

It was a welcome surge after weeks of summer doldrums in the market, a period more notable for declines than any strong gaining periods.

Today’s bitcoin surge was attributed by Forbes to the decline in bitcoin short positions.  Bears are dropping, according to the latest Commitments of Traders (COT) report released by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). As of last week, the report shows that the net position on bitcoin futures declined by 1,266. Short positions fell by 210 contracts to 3,426 as compared with the previous week, with long positions up by 56 contracts at 2,160.

Bitcoin market highlights for the 24 hours ending August 28, 2018 at 1:00 pm US Eastern Time

The highest price seen was $7,203.94 on the Cryptonex exchange at 11:01 am today. Cryptonex saw $19,973,103 of bitcoin change hands.

The lowest price seen was $6,539.06 on Cryptonex’s exchange at 5:13 pm yesterday. Cryptonex’s 24 hour volume was $19,973,103.

The average price on the surveyed exchanges, as weighed by volume, was $6,901.32.

Volatility was a bit above average, with the BlockTribune Volatility Index coming in at 57.5. A higher number indicates greater price volatility with 50 describing an average day.

These statistics were consolidated from 18 different exchanges. It includes only BTC/USD trades and only on those exchanges that had at least 1% of the total volume of BTC/USD trades during the measurement period.