Bitcoin Price Could End Day With Tightest Trading Range of 2018

UPDATE (20:00 UTC): Bitcoin's trading range has now surpassed $160 for the day.

The bitcoin market has gone comatose today with a key volatility reading hitting fresh yearly lows.

The daily bitcoin volatility, as represented by the spread between the daily price high and price low (as per UTC), currently stands at $84 – the lowest level since July 9, 2017 – according to CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index (BPI). Back then, the spread was seen at $68.

Assuming that this differential remains at $84 until 00:00 UTC hours, we can say that bitcoin's daily volatility has hit a 13-month low Friday.

The reading is of particular importance for traders as the drop in the volatility is often a precursor to the big move in prices. For instance, the daily volatility jumped to $389 on July 10, after having hit a yearly low of $97.21 on July 8.

On similar lines, the daily range spiked to $850 on June 10, after printing a low of $107 on June 7.

The data gels well with technical theory, which states that the longer the period of consolidation (low volatility period), the more violent the breakout tends to be.

Accordingly, we could be in for a big move in the next few days, possibly on the higher side as the technicals are biased toward the bulls and the BTC/USD shorts on Bitfinex are near record highs, meaning the cryptocurrency is vulnerable to a short covering rally.

All in all, the bitcoin daily volatility has hit 13-month lows at a time when the path of least resistance for bitcoin is on the higher side. So, it seems safe to say a big bullish move is overdue.

However, a break below the key support of $6,230 (Aug. 20 low) would invalidate the bullish view put forward by the technical studies.

Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.

Money tightening image via Shutterstock