Key Takeaways:
- Bitcoin price keeps resilient near $56,000 as crypto buyers hold the line amid looming risks
- A new Covid-19 strain from South Africa knocks the global financial markets
What’s Today’s News in Crypto?
Bitcoin, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency, remained resilient early Friday in the face of looming uncertainty by a new Covid-19 variant. The new strain, first discovered in South Africa, is already found in Hong Kong and Israel.
Due to the heightened uncertainty and too little known about the Covid mutant, financial markets were rattled even before they opened. Stocks in the US sold off in pre-market with Dow futures down over 2%. In addition, European bourses plunged right out of the gate today with the region-wide Stoxx 600 losing over 3%.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, kept firm as the entire crypto asset class held steady near or slightly below unchanged levels. As it turned out, crypto traders chose to stick to their digital asset investments amid a gloomy market sentiment elsewhere.
What’s the Price of Bitcoin?
The price of bitcoin is currently gravitating towards $56,000 per coin. Earlier today, the leading token reached a session high of $59,300 but buying momentum faded. As a result, price slipped back near its opening levels for the day.
Over the week, however, the price of bitcoin shows a modest loss of about 3%. In other words, bitcoin is on track to finish a second consecutive week in negative territory. Longer-term, this month, bitcoin has been under the weather as its price has declined about 6.9% to its present levels.
Despite the relatively weak month so far for the token, bitcoin bulls remain highly optimistic about growth potential. Furthermore, they are projecting a new all-time high for the leading crypto asset as well as other major coins.
On this note, the second-biggest coin in crypto market, Ether, is currently trading near $4,200 apiece. The coin has been showing some signs of weakness over the past couple of weeks. Earlier this month, the Ethereum token peaked at an all-time high of $4,860 per coin.