Bitcoin Price Little Changed as Broader Crypto Market Evaluates Recent Events

Following a remarkable wave of events, the price of bitcoin was unusually calm on Friday as the digital currency swayed back and forth within a tight range since the beginning of the day. The high value of a single bitcoin still meant that small and simple price movements in such a tight range still spanned over a few hundred dollars, a reminder that the digital currency holds almost no resemblance to fiat currencies.

Bitcoin lost 2.28 percent to 8,036.7 U.S. dollars on Friday after moving between 8,423.0 dollars and 7,884.7 dollars since the beginning of the day. The digital currency appears to be trying to consolidate above the 8,000-dollar mark before making moves in the coming days to higher levels. Meanwhile, Ethereum gave up 1.61 percent to 809.11 dollars and Bitcoin Cash climbed by 23.76 percent to 1,276.0 dollars, outperforming most cryptocurrencies.

Today's gains for Bitcoin Cash were based on support that traditional bitcoin could not harness. Investors are gradually growing tired of troubles that the traditional bitcoin network is facing, which include high fees and long transaction confirmation times due to network congestion.

Meanwhile, the alternative coin, which came into existence in August 2017, has solved these problems by upgrading its blockchain network to use bigger data blocks, allowing a better scalability. This has led to an increased adoption that may continue to spread until bitcoin's scalability issues are solved.

Out in the broader cryptocurrency market, little to no action was seen today as the overall mood turned cautious. After a wild ride over the past weeks that has frayed investors' nerves, many of them appreciated calm price movements in the market to allow themselves enough room to reevaluate their positions.

Some market watchers believe that the market might have found the bottom of the recent crash and will only grow bigger from this moment on. Despite the latest decisions from major western banks to block the use of credit cards when buying cryptocurrencies, institutional interest does not seem to have fully weathered. This could take the market higher once regulations become clearer.

However, such forecasts do not have much solid ground to stand on since the whole cryptocurrency market is highly speculative and often takes unpredictable turns. Thus, investors have no option but to wait and see how the world of virtual assets will behave in the next few days.

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