Bitcoin Stabilizes Around $6530 Levels After Early Week Gains

Bitcoin is showing more signs of maturity as more financial institutions warm up to digital currencies.

Today, the overall cryptocurrency market is witnessing soft trading with most of the cryptocurrencies showing minor movement. In the last 24-hours, the overall cryptocurrency market is relatively stable around $120.5 billion, according to the data on CoinMarketCap. Similarly, Bitcoin (BTC) is showing a soft movement and is currently trading 0.12% up at $6539.

Earlier this week, the announcement of Fidelity Asset Services shot the Bitcoin price up over $6900 levels. However, this momentum was short-lived with Bitcoin managing to end the day, October 15, at just over $6600 level. The entry of Financial Services giant Fidelity Investments is a big vote of confidence in the cryptocurrency market. The crypto exchange Fidelity Assets will provide cryptocurrency storage and trading services to institutional and enterprise clients.

Fidelity Chairman and CEO, Abigail P. Johnson said:

“Our goal is to make digitally-native assets, such as bitcoin, more accessible to investors,” said Abigail. “We expect to continue investing and experimenting, over the long-term, with ways to make this emerging asset class easier for our clients to understand and use.”

Crypto Experts Comment on the Latest Bitcoin Volatility

Looking at Bitcoin’s sudden price swing this week, experts yet again warned against the crypto’s extreme volatile behavior. Sam Enrico Williams, of cryptocurrency due diligence platform Zloadr.com, told The Express UK:

“The fact that this hasn’t happened is interesting as it suggests to us that more and more seasoned investors with wider portfolios are getting into cryptocurrencies and are using similar equity strategies to manage their positions.” He further added: “Financial markets tend to fall a lot faster than they rise and when the equity markets see a move of this magnitude, perhaps there is a tendency to also flatten positions in crypto assets to clear the decks completely. This move indicates a high correlation between equities and cryptos, so if the stock market rout continues, then we could see further weakness in BTC. The key support levels to watch to the downside are $6,140 and $6,000.”

CME Reports a 41% Jump In Bitcoin Futures Trading

Derivative exchange group CME said that there was a 41% jump in Bitcoin Futures Trading quarter-over-quarter during the Q3. During this period, CME averaged nearly 5053 contracts, each contract equivalent to 5BTC traded during daily trading sessions. This amounts to 25,265 BTC traded in volume terms.

In comparison to Q2, the open interest in market jumped by 19% during the Q3.

In Q3, Bitcoin futures average daily volume rose 41% and open interest was up 19% over Q2 . Learn how market participants are using BTC to manage risk in changing markets. https://t.co/Yt41SzsHku pic.twitter.com/Kw4OX0QaKT — CMEGroup (@CMEGroup) October 17, 2018

Although there is a steady increase in BTC volumes, CME CEO Tery Duffy said that the company is not rushing to list new products. Earlier in July 2018, Duffy was quoted saying:

“Before we get into any other cryptocurrencies, we’re going to see how this one goes, and I think that six to eight months as a listing of bitcoin is not a good enough barometer to decide what your future should be for any other cryptocurrency. I will not just put products up there to see where they’re going to go. I will take a wait and see approach with Bitcoin for now.”

A number of global institutions are now increasingly looking towards Bitcoin. Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), J. Christopher Giancarlo, also acknowledged this fact. He said that more institutions are interacting with Bitcoin and other crypto assets. He called it a sign of growing maturity in the crypto market.