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Bitcoin prices were moving higher Friday, headed for back-to-back winning weeks after holding above the crucial $6,000 mark.
The market for bitcoin, the world’s biggest digital coin, largely shrugged off Wednesday’s decision from the Securities and Exchange Commission to deny nine separate proposals for bitcoin-related exchange-traded funds.
A single bitcoin BTCUSD, +1.60% was last trading at $6,610.90, up 3% since Thursday at 5 p.m. Eastern Time on the Kraken crypto exchange.
Even with the prospect of consecutive winning weeks, bitcoin remains in a tight range, and one asset management firm has warned that those positioning for a short squeeze should tread carefully.
“Everyone is talking about the short positioning on Bitfinex (as of today, roughly 39k bitcoins or $250m using current prices). Everyone is speculating on a short squeeze. Everyone is positioning a future long with stop-limit orders (hopefully). And everyone is just waiting,” wrote Thejas Nalval, portfolio director, and Kevin Lu, director of quantitative research at Element Digital Asset Management.
“When everyone is going the same way on a trade, it can effectively be deemed a crowded trade and there is a heightened risk that the price will move the ‘wrong way’ to expectations because of some exogenous factor that nobody predicted for,” he said.
Altcoins following bitcoin higher Friday
Smaller coins other than bitcoin, colloquially known as altcoins, pushed higher Friday. Ether ETHUSD, +0.37% is up 2.5% to $280.00, Bitcoin Cash BCHUSD, +1.13% is up 2% at $528.10, Litecoin LTCUSD, +0.19% is up 3.6% at $57.70 and Ripple’s XRP coin XRPUSD, +0.85% is trading at 32 cents, up 1.6%.
Bitcoin futures closed the week on a good note. The Cboe Global Markets Inc.’s September contract XBTU8, +3.08% finished up 3.1% at $6,607.50, while the CME Group Inc. August contract BTCQ8, +2.97% ended up 3.3% at $6,615.
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