Crypto Today: Bitcoin consolidates gains below $12K, adds more than $100 on Tuesday
- BTC/USD loses momentum ahead of the critical $12K mark.
- Technicals point to a corrective pullback.
- Market cap continues to increase.
The BTC/USD pair reached a fresh record high at $11950 on Tuesday and started to consolidate its daily gains. Although no clear catalysts were spotted behind today's upsurge, the positive impact of yesterday's announcement of the CBOE offering bitcoin future contracts as early as December 10 seemed to have carried over. As of writing, the pair was trading at $11757, up $160, or 1.4%, on the day. On the other hand, The second biggest digital currency in terms of trading volume, ether, struggled to find demand and the ETH/USD pair remained confined in a tight range above the $450 mark.
According to the latest available data on coinmarketcap.com, the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies rose to $357 billion on Tuesday with bitcoin preserving its dominance at 55%.
In an interview with CNBC, Stephen Roach. Morgan Stanley’s former Asian chief and an economics professor at Yale, argued that bitcoin was a dangerous speculative bubble and a toxic concept for investors. “I’ve never seen a chart of a security where the price really has a vertical pattern to it. And bitcoin is the most vertical of any pattern I’ve ever seen in my career,” Roach said, and, "like all bubbles, they burst. They go down, and the one who’s made the last investment gets hurt the most, there’s no question about it,” he further added.
In an article written for coindesk.com, FXStreet Analyst Omkar Godbole noted that the BTC/USD pair was showing overbought conditions. "Of late, volumes have remained low during the rally, while bouts of sell-off have been accompanied by a big jump in volumes (marked by circles). A high volume retreat in prices indicates potential for a correction. Although bitcoin's price is forming higher lows, the RSI is losing altitude, also indicating scope for a pullback," Godbole pointed out.