After a reasonably steady day and half of trade, the bitcoin (BTC) price has started to tumble lower in afternoon trade.
At the time of writing the bitcoin price is down 3% since this time yesterday to US$7,672.66 according to Coin Market Cap.
This reduces its market capitalisation to US$130 billion and has dragged the value of the entire crypto market down to US$287.5 billion.
Why are traders panicking?
There appears to be a fair bit of panic in the air due to the bitcoin price closing in on what is known as a "death cross".
A death cross is a term used to describe a crossover of the 50-day moving average price and the 200-day moving average price. It is arguably one of the most bearish technical signals in investing and will have many traders reaching for the sell button in a hurry if its breaches it.
According to News Limited press, some experts believe that if a death cross were to occur, the bitcoin price could fall as low as US$1,000 or below.
Based on the current price, that would be a decline of approximately 87% for bitcoin and probably spell the end to the crypto mania.
As its fellow cryptocurrencies will often be influenced by bitcoin's movements, it will come as no surprise to learn that they too are under pressure this afternoon.
Here is the state of play at the time of writing:
- The Ethereum (ETH) price is down 5.5% over the last 24 hours to US$425.79.
- The Ripple (XRP) price is down 4.3% since this time yesterday to 55.6 U.S. cents.
- The Bitcoin Cash (BCH) price is off 8.5% during the period to US$810.92.
- The Litecoin (LTC) price is down 6.2% over the last 24 hours to US$126.29.
Time will tell what happens, but we'll be covering any developments if and when they happen.
