Major digital currency prices are trading at or near Thursday’s closing levels, continuing a trend that’s held most coins inside tight ranges over the last four sessions.
Bitcoin, the world’s largest digital currency, was last changing hands at $6,632.87, down 0.2% since Thursday’s level at 5 p.m. Eastern Time on the Kraken exchange. After rising more than 10% earlier in the week, bitcoin
BTCUSD, -0.26%
has gone back and forth between $6,300 and $6,500 lacking any real direction.
“The week started with a sharp spike, subsequently sold into, before low volume and tight trading ranges took control of the market once more. This pattern has dominated for the past month and may be the calm before the storm with a breakout becoming more and more likely,” the analyst team at Daily FX wrote in a morning post.
Read: Here’s how the U.S.-China trade battle is disrupting cryptocurrency miners
Since Monday’s rally, the market cap of all cryptocurrencies has traded either side of $210 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
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First CFTC antifraud action involving bitcoin
Late Thursday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said it had ordered its first antifraud enforcement action involving bitcoin. A federal court in New York ordered Gelfman Blueprint Inc. and its CEO Nicholas Gelfman to pay $2.5 million after it cheated more than 80 customers out of $600,000.
Further reading: CFTC says it brings first antifraud bitcoin action
Altcoins limp out of the blocks Friday
The bitcoin lull has spread to the altcoin market, smaller coins alternative to bitcoin. Ether
ETHUSD, +0.49%
was up 0.5% at $199.61, Bitcoin Cash
BCHUSD, +0.72%
was up 0.3% at $429.50, Litecoin
LTCUSD, +1.71%
was up 1% at $52.01 and XRP,
XRPUSD, +0.30%
was unchanged Friday, at 45 cents.
Bitcoin futures are showing small losses in Friday trading. The Cboe Global Markets November contract
XBTX8, -0.08%
was down 0.2% at $6,370, while the CME Group October contract
BTCV8, -0.31%
had lost 0.4% at $6,365.
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