According to data from CryptoCompare, around 21:00 UTC on Wednesday (February 19), Bitcoin suffered a 7.5% flash crash, dropping almost $800 in just 45 minutes, as you can see in the 24-hour BTC-USD price chart shown below:

BTC-USD 24 Hour Chart on 20 Feb 2020.png

At 21:00 UTC on Wednesday, Bitcoin was trading at $10,146, and by 21:45 UTC, it had dropped to its intraday low of $9,379, i.e. a loss of $767 in value in less than one hour.

As usual, when Bitcoin fell, the vast majority of altcoins fell also, some (e.g. EOS) suffering an even harder fall.

At press time (around 07:20 UTC on February 20), Bitcoin has recovered somewhat to $9,625. This means that currently Bitcoin’s market cap is $175 billion, and Bitcoin Dominance stands at 62.75%. 

Bitcoin’s return-on-investment (ROI) figures (against USD) for the past 7-day period, past 30-day period, year-to-date (YTD) period, and  past one-year period are -6.1%, +10.10%, +33.28, and  +139.88% respectively.

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index, which “provides an easy overview of the current sentiment of the Bitcoin / crypto market at a glance”, currently has the value 44 (i.e. in the “Fear” territory):

Fear & Greed Index on 20 Feb 2020.png

Popular macroeconomist and crypto/trader Alex Krüger took this opportunity to remind traders not to speculate with Bitcoin on high leverage:

As for Josh Rager, another prominent crypto analyst/trader, he offered this bit of technical analysis:

With regard to market volatility, crypto exchange Kraken’s recently-released report “January 2020 Volatility Report” made a number of interesting observations, but the key takeaway was:

Shifts in sentiment and open interest in Jan. indicate greater volatility in the coming weeks or months.

Finally, on the topic of Bitcoin’s next block mining reward halving in May 2020, Binance Co-Founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao (aka “CZ”), expressed the following opinion during an interview yesterday with BLOCKTV Senior Anchor Yael Lavy:

I personally believe the halving has not been priced in.

 

Featured Image by “Pexels” via Pixabay.com