Bitcoin Breaches $10K Barrier, Yet Again

The dominant name in cryptos slipped through an important psychological threshold, making the break below $10,000 for the second time within a week’s span.

As CNBC.com reports, trading Tuesday, as measured by CoinDesk’s price index (tied to a number of exchanges ranging from Coinbase to Bitfinex, among others), showed bitcoin at $9,972.29, off more than 7 percent in intraday trading.

Said CNBC.com, the day had seen the digital currency recover to a level north of $10,240. The site said that no real reasons were evident for the day’s early losses, as bitcoin’s slide last week into now has taken the year-to-date decline to 25 percent. And yet, caution remained a staple of investor advice from some of the biggest names in finance. Ray Dalio, head of Bridgewater Associates, speaking at the World Economic Forum on Tuesday, told an audience that the market remains in bubble territory. He said of bitcoin that “I don’t know how to value it. I believe in the blockchain technology. I think it’s great, but that notion of how to trade it and how to value it is not my expertise.”

Other digital currencies fell, possibly in sympathy with bitcoin, as Ethereum, for example, was 5 percent lower intraday to $950, as estimated by CoinMarketCap. Similarly, Ripple, the third largest crypto, slipped 6.5 percent, changing hands at $1.27 in the morning’s price activity.

One tell on Tuesday’s price trading activity might be the continued news coming from South Korea, where the country’s Financial Services Commission has said that a ban on trading accounts that are held anonymously will begin on Jan. 30. Those holding such accounts will be allowed to trade only if they provide identifying information to banks.