Bitcoin (BTC) had a lacklustre session yesterday, as it once again struggled to defend the $8,000 mark. Having opened at $8,196.92, the digital coin dropped to sub-$8,000 levels during the early hours of trading. The coin’s decline culminated in the early afternoon session, when its price fell to an intraday low of $7,678.78. The coin recovered some of its losses during the final hour of the session and eventually finished the day at $7,978.31.
Bitcoin has continued to struggle during today’s morning session. Since the start of the session, the coin’s price has been moving within the $7,900-$8,000 range, unable to gain enough momentum to launch a meaningful break above the $8,000 mark. The coin has followed the same pattern since it broke above that level on May 13.
Upcoming halving contributes to recent gains
While Bitcoin’s rally has stalled in recent days, this month has so far been very successful for the cryptocurrency. At current price levels, BTC is up more than 48% from its May 1 opening price of $5,350.91. It has also more than doubled its price since the start of the year.
Positive news, such as reports about Facebook’s secretive crypto plans, have contributed to BTC’s gains this year. Some analysts also point to the upcoming halving of BTC miner rewards, which is set to come a year from now. The event will reduce the reward for mining a block on the Bitcoin blockchain to 6.25 BTC, from 12.5 BTC, currently.
“It’s exactly one year from today,” Fundstrat Global Advisors’ head of research Tom Lee told Yahoo Finance. “And bitcoin has historically staged a pretty big rally into the halving, because you’re really cutting supplies. So $9 million of day-to-day is sold by miners. It’s going to drop to $4.5 million on the halving date.”
In today’s trading, the Bitcoin price stood at $7,924.87, as of 11:42 BST. The digital coin has gained 0.3% in the past 24 hours. Its total market capitalisation currently stands at $140.4 billion, which represents 56.8% of the combined value of all digital currencies.
Featured image: Jaruwan Jaiyangyuen / Shutterstock.com
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