BTCUSD - Remains Attracted to Key $6500 Level Despite Volatility

In the second half of July, BTCUSD enjoyed a strong surge higher moving through the key $6500 level and to the two month high. May and June saw Bitcoin fall strongly losing almost 40% of its value in that short period, from the peak near $10000 in early May to trading levels just below $6500. Throughout April, BTCUSD again rallied well off support at $6500 to that recent approaching $10000, however these gains have been few and far between in 2018.

In December the price of one bitcoin (BTC) reached a new all-time high of $19,783.06, according to Coindesk. To say that BTCUSD has struggled this year is an understatement. For the most part it has formed lower peaks and lower troughs. It is the $6500 level than many market participants are watching as BTCUSD has repeatedly bounced off this level.

New York University’s Stern School of Business professor of economics Nouriel Roubini has delivered a scathing attack on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.He has described the currencies as “the mother of all scams” and blockchain as the “most over-hyped technology ever”.Mr Roubini has previously been referred to as ‘Dr Doom’ for correctly predicting financial crises and has long been a critic of digital currencies.Mr Roubini delivered his assessment before the U.S. Senate banking committee hearing last week and said the cryptocurrency market had “now gone into a crypto-apocalypse as the mother and father of all bubbles has now gone bust”.Mr Roubini mentioned some of the common criticisms of bitcoin: its high transaction fees, wildly fluctuating price, massive energy requirements of ‘miners’ and lack of protection from fraud, theft or loss.On cryptocurrencies generally, he argued they have no intrinsic value compared with fiat currency, and that blockchain was “nothing better than a glorified spreadsheet or database”.“Scammers, swindlers, criminals, charlatans, insider whales and carnival barkers tapped into clueless retail investors’ FOMO and took them for a ride selling them and dumping on them scammy crappy assets at the peak that then went into a bust and crash - in a matter of months - like you have not seen in any history of financial bubbles,” Mr Roubini said.