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Today, Bitcoin price mostly traded sideways in its recent support region between $5,500 – $5600. After Bitcoin set an all-time high of $5856 last week, investors and traders have been closely watching charts with anticipation to see whether the prices would hold above this historic level or contract to a lower threshold.
So far, Bitcoin has managed to avoid any major pullback. Despite going below $5,500 on several occasions, the Bitcoin price has consistently recovered to the $5,600 mark. On Tuesday, prices climbed a bit further to $5700 but soon consolidated back to $5600 level.
It is unlikely that Bitcoin price will breakout from here before the November hard fork. At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $5560, which translates into a $95.3 billion market cap.
Several analysts predict bitcoin could rise into the $6,000 to $7,500 range by the end of the year, but its short-term trajectory will be heavily dependent on the outcome of the contentious SegWit2x hard fork.
Top Stories from the Crypto World
1. Bitfinex halts service for US users
Bitfinex first disclosed its plans to close the trading platform back in August due to the impractical regulations and policies imposed by the US government.
The exchange specifically pointed out the unnecessary existence of state-specific regulations such as New York’s BitLicense, which require Bitcoin startups and cryptocurrency businesses to comply with state regulations in addition to policies imposed by the federal government.
Since then, the Bitfinex team has disabled verification and deposits from US customers. On October 16, in a follow-up statement, Bitfinex announced that it plans to halt all of its services including withdrawals for US customers by November 9.
2. Bitcoin demand in Venezuela continues to rise
Since June, within a three-month period, the trading volume of LocalBitcoins Venezuela has quadrupled, from around 9 billion to 40 billion Venezuelan bolivars. In Venezuela, It isn’t easy to use cryptocurrency trading platforms and Bitcoin exchanges to invest in Bitcoin.
As the country suffers from hyperinflation and rapid devaluation of its national currency, more and more people are looking for alternative assets to store their wealth.
3. Julian Assange thanks the US government
Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, thanked the US government, Senators, for pushing Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, AmEx, Moneybookers into erecting an illegal banking blockade against Wikileaks starting in 2010.
As a result, Wikileaks was forced to invest in Bitcoin in 2010 after the release of sensitive government documents related to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which has now up 50,000%.